THAT  HUMAN  BEING, 
LEONARD  WOOD 


BY 
HERMANN  HAGEDORN 


"All  of  us  \v  no  give  service,  and  stand  ready  for 
sacrifice,  are  the  torch-bearers.  We  run  with 
the  torches  until  we  fall,  content  if  we  can 
then  pass  them  to  the  hands  of  other  runners." 
Theodore  Roosevelt 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND  HOWE 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,    IQ2O,   BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND   HOWE,   INC. 


THE  OUINN  ft   BODEN   COMPANY 
RAHWAY.   N.  J. 


Vo 

HAROLD   PULSIFER 


41832 


NOTE 

FOR  much  of  the  biographical  material 
which  is  the  basis  of  this  sketch  the  author 
is  indebted  to  General  Wood  himself  and  to 
members  of  his  staff,  notably  Colonel  E.  H. 
Humphrey  and  Colonel  John  C.  H.  Lee;  to 
Mrs.  Sara  L.  Beckwith,  of  the  Bureau  of 
Insular  Affairs  in  Washington,  Mr.  Herbert 
L.  Statesir,  of  the  War  Department,  and 
Major  Edward  Clark;  and  to  Mr.  Wilson  L. 
Gill,  under  whose  direction  the  "  school  city  " 
project  was  established  in  Cuban  schools;  as 
well  as  to  the  authors  of  various  books 
and  magazine  articles  dealing  with  General 
Wood's  character  and  career,  especially  Mr. 
Ray  Stannard  Baker,  Mr.  Joseph  Hamblen 
Sears  and  Mr.  John  G.  Holme.  For  the 
guidance  or  active  assistance  which  each  gave 
him,  the  author  desires  to  express  his  warm 
appreciation. 

H.  H. 

New  York,  March  i,  1920. 


THAT  HUMAN  BEING, 
LEONARD  WOOD 

I 
r 

WHAT,  in  the  name  of  things  wiser 
than    dictionaries,    is    a    human 

being? 

The  theories  of  the  dictionaries  on  the 
subject   are   vague   and   general.     They 
imply  that  all  things  that  clothe  their 
means  of  locomotion  in  trousers  or  skirts 
are  human  beings;  all  things  that  eat  and 
sleep  and  have  the  capacity  to  grumble; 
that  worry  and  stew  and  tyrannize  and 
procrastinate;    that    reason    and    spout 
rhetoric;    that   sentimentalize    and   con 
fuse;  that  smile  and  hate  and  are  gra 
cious,    and   pray   and   preach   and  bear 
watching.     The  dictionaries  are  wrong. 
3 


Wood 

There  have  been  creatures  who  have 
done  all  those  things,  and  still  have  not 
been  human;  there  have  been  kings  and 
potentates  who  have  done  stranger  things, 
standing  astride  of  oceans,  for  instance, 
and  juggling  nations  like  little  colored 
balls  in  the  air;  and  they  have  not  been 
human  beings  at  all. 

What  then  makes  a  being  human? 

It  is  understanding;  first  of  all  and 
last  of  all,  it  is  understanding.  It  is 
not  book-learning,  it  is  not  even  wisdom, 
for  the  sage  who  wrote  the  proverb,  urg 
ing  man  to  "  get  wisdom,"  urged  in  the 
same  breath,  "  and  with  all  thy  getting, 
get  understanding."  It  is  humility  that 
makes  a  being  human,  humility  born  of 
mistakes  and  frailties  and  failings  and 
defeats;  it  is  knowledge  of  men  and  of 
the  strange  twistings  and  turnings,  the 
curious  contradictions  of  baseness  and 
splendor,  in  the  hearts  of  men,  that  makes 
4 


Leonard  Wood 

a  being  human.  It  is  the  sympathy,  born 
of  such  knowledge,  and  the  tenderness 
born  of  sympathy;  it  is  a  sense  of  humor; 
it  is  respect  for  facts  and  scorn  for  self- 
delusion;  it  is  all  these  things,  comprised 
in  the  one  thing — understanding — that 
makes  a  being  human. 

Explain  understanding  and  you  ex 
plain  what  constitutes  the  difference  be 
tween  an  intellectual  mechanism  and  a 
human  being.  A  man,  asked  to  define 
the  word,  might  echo  the  reply  of  a 
certain  statesman,  asked  to  define  an 
"  overt  act " — "  I  don't  know  what  it  is 
but  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  recognize 
it  when  I  see  it."  Understanding  is 
known  best  by  the  way  it  draws  to  it  the 
struggling  and  bewildered  hearts  of  men. 

"  If  I  were  on  a  schooner  in  a  hurri 
cane  with  the  seas  like  mountains  around, 
and  I  were  to  grope  my  way  in  panic  out 

S 


Leonard  Wood 

of  bed  and  across  the  deck  to  the  man  at 
the  wheel,  and  were  to  look  under  his 
sou'wester  and  discover  it  was  Leonard 
Wood,  I'd  say,  '  Oh,  it's  all  right  then! ' 
and  go  to  bed  again  and  rest  easy. 
That's  the  way  I  feel  about  Leonard 
Wood." 

So  one  man  spoke;  so,  millions,  de 
pendent  on  his  vigilance  and  strength  in 
remote  corners  of  the  world,  have  seemed 
to  feel  in  years  past;  so,  men  and  women, 
in  numbers  not  yet  to  be  estimated,  seem 
to  feel  in  his  own  country  to-day. 

Who  is  this  man,  Leonard  Wood? 
What  has  he  done?  What  manner  of 
man  is  he?  What  qualities  does  he  pos 
sess  that  make  thousands  of  men  and 
women  turn  to  him  for  leadership  with 
fervor  and  trust?  Is  he  a  real  leader  or 
is  he  merely  the  shadow  of  Roosevelt, 
his  friend?  Is  he  a  real  statesman  or  is 
he  merely  a  well-advertised  child  of 
6 


Leonard  Wood 

fortune?     Is  he  a  real  man  or  is  he  a 
stuffed  club? 
Let  us  see. 

His  photographs  are  against  him,  for 
his  photographs,  with  few  exceptions, 
show  his  face  in  repose,  and  his  face  in 
repose  is  not  the  man  at  all,  but  a  mask 
for  a  grim  animal  known  as  a  general, 
worn  as  he  wears  his  two  stars,  as  a  part 
of  the  uniform,  a  symbol  of  determina 
tion,  more  useful  than  many  orations  in 
making  clear  to  an  army  of  happy-go- 
lucky  doughboys  the  elementary  rules 
of  the  game.  At  its  grimmest — and  it  is 
generally  at  its  grimmest  facing  the 
camera — the  mask  is  something  to 
frighten  babies  with,  and  to  horrify  the 
dyspeptic  with  suggestions  of  platforms 
advocating  the  use  of  brass  tacks  in  hash 
and  of  cayenne-pepper  in  tea.  The  jaw 
has  a  terrifying  strength;  the  firm, 

7 


Leonard  Wood 

straight  mouth,  the  small  and  distant 
eyes,  the  whole  Gibraltar-like  solidity  of 
the  depicted  features,  suggest  a  Rus 
sian  imperial  governor  preparing  for  the 
daily  massacre,  or  a  Japanese  Elder 
Statesman  about  to  annex  the  world. 

Behind  the  mask  the  real  man  lives  his 
varied  and  colorful  life,  doing  three 
days'  work  in  one  with  a  minimum  of 
noise  and  the  energy  of  thirty-five;  grave, 
patient,  humorous,  tender,  with  a  for 
bearance  that  seems  inexhaustible; 
tolerant,  considerate,  humble;  capable 
of  annihilating  with  a  glance  or  a  sud 
den,  sharp  word,  but  vastly  preferring 
conciliation  on  a  basis  of  give  and  take 
to  the  easier  solution  of  brute  force;  a 
devoted  husband,  father  and  friend;  a 
magnetic  leader,  who  binds  his  sub 
ordinates  to  him  by  his  sense  of  justice, 
his  consideration,  his  confidence,  his 
open  mind  and  his  sheer  lovableness, 
8 


Leonard  Wood 

and  disarms  his  opponents  by  the  pa 
tience  of  his  search  for  facts  and  his 
eagerness  to  understand  and  to  be  under 
stood. 

The  world  knows  the  mask;  only  his 
friends  and  close  associates  know  the 
real  human  being  that  is  Leonard  Wood. 

"  He  is  just  like  a  chestnut-bur,"  said 
one  who  for  years  had  known  him  better 
possibly  than  almost  any  one  else.  "  All 
spines  outside,  but  so  soft  and  tender  at 
heart." 

The  outside  of  the  bur  is  the  Elder 
Statesman  who  poses  for  photographs; 
the  inside  of  the  bur  is  the  delightful 
companion  of  a  small  circle  who  smiles 
with  a  whimsical,  boyish  air  and  de 
velops  a  double  chin  when  he  chuckles. 

Physically,  he  is  just  under  six  feet, 
deep-chested  and  solid.  His  face  is  the 
color  of  pink  granite  and  suggests  gran 
ite  in  other  ways,  being  rugged  and 

9 


Leonard  Wood 

deeply  marked.  The  eyes  are  the  clean 
blue  of  a  windswept  sky;  the  nose  is 
broad  and  dominant;  the  mouth  like  a 
statue's  in  repose  and  full  of  life  and 
individuality  in  speech.  His  close- 
cropped  mustache  is  gray;  but  his  hair 
is  sandy-colored  and  young-looking.  His 
voice  is  low.  He  is  sparing  with  words. 
He  reads  without  glasses.  His  left  leg  is 
stiff,  owing  to  an  injury  received  in 
Cuba,  and  he  walks  with  a  rolling  gait 
like  a  sea-captain  who  has  learnt  to 
negotiate  any  sea. 

His  life  is  mainly  work  and  his  work 
is  mainly  service.  He  is  out  of  bed 
early,  at  six  or  five  or  four-thirty,  and 
reads  or  rides  before  breakfast,  works  all 
day  and  reads,  when  he  can,  at  night. 
He  eats  moderately  and,  true  to  his  sea 
faring  ancestors,  can  and  likes  to  live  on 
sardines.  Now  and  then  he  forgets  that 
lunch  is  a  part  of  the  normal  human 
10 


Leonard  Wood 

schedule.  He  is  difficult  to  tire  out, 
owing  partly  to  his  magnificent  health 
and  robust  physique  and  partly  to  his 
ability  to  sleep  anywhere  at  any  time  at  a 
moment's  notice.  He  has  been  known  to 
work  eighteen  hours,  sleep  two,  and  work 
eighteen  more.  Whenever  possible,  he 
fills  the  empty  minute  with  sleep  in  order 
that  the  full  minute  shall  have  every 
ounce  of  his  energy. 

He  is  a  great  nature  lover,  distinctly 
an  outdoor  man;  and  he  has  to-day  the 
physical  vigor  of  manhood  in  its  prime, 
because  he  has  all  his  life  made  it  a 
part  of  the  day's  work  to  keep  the  body 
in  trim.  His  bouts  at  singlestick  with 
President  Roosevelt  are  ancient  history; 
but  he  has  his  bouts  at  singlestick  to 
day.  He  boxes,  he  rows,  he  rides.  When 
he  rows,  he  rows  twelve  or  fifteen  miles; 
when  he  rides,  he  rides  some  large- 
boned  hunter  who  makes  him  work.  At 
ii 


Leonard  Wood 

Camp  Funston,  he  used  to  go  through 
a  program  of  athletic  "  stunts  "  nightly 
with  the  officers  of  his  staff,  stripping 
off  his  coat,  a  match  for  the  hardiest. 
There  was  one  "  stunt "  in  which  he  was 
the  champion.  With  his  forearm  rest 
ing  upright  on  the  table  and  his  fist 
clenched,  he  challenged  the  men  of  his 
staff  to  budge  it.  They  tried  it  in  suc 
cession  and  failed;  whereupon  they  sent 
for  outside  talent.  The  strong  men  of 
the  Sgth  Division,  the  farmers,  the  black 
smiths,  the  coal-heavers,  were  requisi 
tioned;  but  without  result.  The  Gen 
eral's  arm  remained  unmoved  and  im 
movable. 

He  has  no  dominant  tastes  except  for 
his  friends,  his  work,  his  books  and  his 
dogs.  He  loves  dogs,  "  any  kind  of  dogs 
that  have  golden  hearts,"  mongrel  pups 
and  foundlings  left  on  his  doorstep,  pre 
ferred.  He  smokes  moderately  and,  in 

12 


Leonard  Wood 

the  days  before  the  Long  Drought,  drank 
his  glass  of  wine  in  the  same  fashion. 
His  musical  ear  is  about  as  sensitive  as 
was  that  of  Colonel  Roosevelt,  who 
boasted  that  he  could  tell  the  difference 
between  "  Yankee  Doodle "  and  the 
"  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  but  admitted 
that  all  other  delicate  distinctions  of 
sound  were  beyond  his  grasp.  He  de 
tests  problem  plays  and  cares  little  for 
plays  in  general,  but  is  better  than  the 
show  itself  at  a  good  comedy  which  hap 
pens  to  kindle  his  risibilities.  He  reads 
steadily,  widely  and  intelligently,  mainly 
history  and  government;  but  knows 
English  literature  thoroughly  and  Span 
ish  literature  just  as  well.  He  speaks 
Spanish  fluently  and  has  struck  thirteen 
more  than  once  in  Spain  and  in  South 
America  by  his  ability  to  address  gather 
ings  in  the  language  of  the  country.  His 
French  makes  up  in  enthusiasm  for  what 

13 


Leonard  Wood 

it  lacks  in  technical  exactness.  "  Mar 
shal  Joffre,  sitting  between  Roosevelt  and 
Wood  at  a  banquet  in  New  York,"  a 
friend  of  all  three  men  reported, 
"  seemed  lost  between  bewilderment  and 
hilarity  as  he  heard  his  native  tongue 
tortured  to  death  on  his  right  hand  and 
murdered  in  cold  blood  on  his  left." 

His  writing,  like  his  talk,  is  clear,  terse 
and  almost  abrupt.  When  his  heart  is 
not  in  it,  it  has  a  tendency  to  be  a  bit 
heavy-footed;  but  when  his  emotions  are 
kindled  the  words  burn  and  sweep  along 
in  a  rhythmic  prose  that  has  the  sincerity 
and  simplicity  of  authentic  literature  and 
is  as  easy  to  understand  as  the  Ten  Com 
mandments.  His  demobilization  order 
to  the  loth  Division  and  his  farewell  to 
the  men  of  the  SQth,  known  as  "  Wood's 
Orphans,"  when  they  embarked  without 
him  for  France,  have  in  their  hundred  or 
two  hundred  words  the  surcharged  qual- 
14 


Leonard  Wood 

ity  of  great  orations.  As  an  impromptu 
speaker  he  is  effective  but  not  compel 
ling.  Audiences  listen  to  him  because 
they  like  what  he  says;  not  because  he 
has  any  of  the  arts  of  the  spellbinder. 
He  is  impressive  because  he  is  sincere. 
He  kindles  men  not  by  showering  them 
with  sparks  but  by  bringing  them  into 
contact,  as  it  were,  with  the  fierce  heat  of 
his  own  convictions. 


II 

5O  much  for  the  man,  Leonard  Wood, 
as  he  walks  and  talks  in  Chicago  or 
flashes  for  a  hectic  day  through  New 
York,  or  sets  on  edge  the  teeth  of  a 
nervous  and  somewhat  emaciated,  elderly 
Administration  where  she  rocks  at  a 
window  in  Washington,  conscious  that 
fall  is  in  the  air. 

"  A  vivid  personality,"  agrees  the 
gentleman  from  Missouri.  "  I  didn't 
realize  how  much  of  a  human  being  he 
was.  I  admit  I  was  fooled  by  the  mask. 
But  a  vivid  personality  may  make  a 
mighty  poor  executive.  How  does  he 
handle  himself  in  a  crisis?  You  talk  of 
conciliation,  of  seeking  to  understand 
and  to  be  understood.  If  I  know 
Leonard  Wood  he  prefers  the  meat-ax." 
16 


Leonard  Wood 

Let  us  see. 

In  the  autumn  of  1919,  four  hundred 
thousand  workingmen  threw  down 
their  tools  in  the  steel  mills  of  the 
country  and  went  on  strike.  Violence 
was  threatened;  here  and  there  actual 
violence  occurred.  Leonard  Wood,  com 
manding  general  of  the  Army  in  the 
Central  Department,  covering  a  terri 
tory  as  large  as  Europe,  set  his  troops 
in  readiness  and  waited  for  the  telephone 
to  ring. 

Early  in  October  it  rang.  The  Gov 
ernor  of  Indiana  feared  mob  violence  in 
Gary  and  wanted  a  regiment  there  to 
preserve  law  and  order.  General  Wood 
replied  that  the  regiment  would  be  sent. 
Fifteen  minutes  later  the  men  were  fall 
ing  into  line.  The  General  announced 
that  he  himself  would  go  and  take  charge 
of  the  situation. 

There  was  a  scurrying  and  a  wild  con- 
17 


Leonard  Wood 

ferring  among  the  General's  political 
supporters  when  the  news  was  noised 
abroad.  Frantic  appeals  came  over  the 
telephone  from  various  parts  of  the  city. 
"  Don't  go  to  Gary!  "  his  friends  pro 
tested.  "That  strike  situation  has  too 
much  dynamite  in  it.  As  a  candidate 
for  President  you  haven't  the  right  to 
risk  it.  Send  some  subordinate.  If  you 
go  to  Gary,  sure  as  you're  born,  you'll 
have  to  shoot  a  lot  of  people  and  that 
will  be  the  end  of  you." 

His  jaw  seemed  to  settle  into  place. 
"All   right,"  he  answered,  looking  for 
all  the  world  like  an  unhappy  but  reso 
lute  old  Roman  about  to  slay  his  only 
daughter.     "  If  it's  the  end  of  me,  it's 
the  end  of  me  and  there's  nothing  more 
to   be  said.     But   I  won't  send   a  sub 
ordinate  down  there,  and  then,  if  things 
go  wrong,  protect  myself  by  making  a 
subordinate  carry  the  blame." 
18 


Leonard  Wood 

He  went.  The  dynamite  was  there,  it 
was  there  in  quantities  to  make  the  ordi 
nary  man  with  political  ambitions  and 
an  eye  for  political  consequences  quake 
in  his  boots.  But  somehow  it  did  not  go 
off.  General  Wood  did  not  seem  to  say 
very  much;  he  did  not  appear  to  be 
doing  very  much.  But  the  news  which 
every  one  was  expecting  from  that  turbu 
lent  strike-center  did  not  "  break."  Gary, 
which  had  exhibited  symptoms  of  incipi 
ent  chaos,  suddenly  quieted  down  and 
slipped  out  of  the  news  entirely. 

What  had  happened?  The  representa 
tives  of  the  press,  cooling  their  heels  in 
the  corridor  outside  the  office  of  the 
Mayor  of  Gary,  never  had  an  inkling  of 
it.  General  Wood  did  not  invite  them 
to  his  dramatic  little  party  inside,  and 
they  missed  a  gorgeous  opportunity  to 
see  how  a  human  being  could,  by  his 
very  humanness,  dominate  a  critical 
19 


Leonard  Wood 

situation.     It  was  the  General's  chief  of 
staff  who  afterwards  told  the  story. 

General  Wood  arrived  in  Gary  ahead 
of  the  troops,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  and  proceeded  at  once  to  the 
Mayor's  office.  An  ugly  crowd  filled  the 
streets  outside  the  City  Hall,  evidently 
strikers.  He  noticed  several  men  who 
were  in  uniform,  and  turned  to  his  aide. 
"  Ask  those  service  men  to  come  to  see 
me,"  he  said  quietly. 

In  the  Mayor's  office,  the  leading 
town  officials  were  gathered. 

"  Tell  me  the  situation,"  said  the  Gen 
eral. 

The  Mayor  explained  it  at  length. 
The  strike-leaders,  themselves,  it  seemed, 
were  reasonable  men.  The  real  source 
of  trouble  were  certain  agitators,  who 
were  the  leaders  of  a  small  radical  group 
who  had  gained  an  unsavory  reputation 
during  the  War  and  were  now  spurring 
20 


Leonard  Wood 

the  strikers  to  violence.  The  General  sent 
for  the  labor  leaders  and  for  one  of  the 
agitators. 

Twenty  minutes  later,  he  had  all  the 
factors  in  the  situation  before  him — the 
town  officials,  representing  law  and 
order;  the  agitator,  representing  vio 
lence;  the  labor  leaders,  representing  the 
strikers;  and  the  three  men  in  uniform 
out  of  the  crowd,  representing  the  flag. 

"  I  am  about  to  issue  a  proclamation," 
he  said,  standing  before  them,  "  and  I 
want  you  all  to  hear  it  and  to  understand 
the  situation."  Then  he  dictated  a  state 
ment  forbidding  parades  and  public  as 
semblages  in  the  streets  and  the  carrying 
of  firearms;  and  laying  down  certain 
regulations  regarding  men  in  uniform. 
Theaters,  lecture  halls,  moving-picture 
places  and  other  well-conducted  places 
of  amusement,  he  declared,  should  con 
tinue  as  usual. 

21 


Leonard  Wood 

"  You  have  heard  what  will  be  ex 
pected  of  the  citizens  of  Gary,"  he  con 
cluded.  "  The  regulations  laid  down  in 
this  proclamation  are  all  that  there  are. 
There  will  be  no  secret  instructions." 

Thereupon  he  sent  the  statement  to 
the  press  and  turned  to  the  eldest  of  the 
three  service  men.  If  the  man  expected 
to  be  "  blown  up,"  he  was  disappointed. 
"  Corporal,"  said  the  General  in  the  tone 
of  one  seeking  information,  "  you  knew 
that  the  Mayor  of  Gary  had  forbidden 
the  strikers  to  parade.  Why  were  you  and 
these  other  service  men  in  that  crowd, 
and  why  were  you  in  uniform?  " 

"  We  put  on  our  uniforms,  sir,"  the 
corporal  answered,  "  because  we  wanted 
to  hold  the  crowd  down  to  an  orderly 
meeting  and  keep  them  from  burning  the 
plant  or  the  city  as  some  of  them  were 
out  to  do.  And  we  thought  our  uniforms 
might  help." 

22 


Leonard  Wood 

"Are  you  strikers?  " 

"  Yes,  sir."  The  man  lifted  his  head. 
"  But  we  are  Americans  first." 

The  General's  face  cleared.  "  Good !  " 
he  exclaimed.  "  I  congratulate  you. 
YouVe  got  the  right  point  of  view. 
Are  you  members  of  the  American 
Legion?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"That's  fine!  I  suggest  that  you  call 
a  meeting  of  your  post  and  make  it  gen 
erally  known  that  you  stand  for  law  and 
order  and  propose  to  support  the  authori 


ties." 


"We  have  called  a  meeting  for  to 
night,  sir." 

"  Good.  Tell  the  men  that  I  should 
be  glad  to  have  their  help  in  keeping 
order  in  Gary.  All  who  volunteer  will 
be  sworn  in  as  deputy  sheriffs." 

Then  the  General  turned  to  the  labor 
leaders.  There  were  three  of  them  pres- 
23 


Leonard  Wood 

ent.    The  General  addressed  the  one  who 
was  evidently  the  spokesman. 

"Mr.  Anderson,"  he  said,  "  you  repre 
sent  the  strikers,  I  understand.  I  want 
to  make  one  thing  clear  to  you  and  to  the 
workers  you  represent.  I  want  you  to 
understand  that  the  military  forces  are 
in  Gary  not  in  the  interest  of  the  steel 
operators  and  not  in  the  interest  of  the 
strikers,  but  to  maintain  law  and  order. 
In  our  official  capacity  we  are  not  in 
terested  whether  the  strike  continues  or 
not.  We  may  have  our  personal  opin 
ions,  but  these  do  not  affect  our  actions. 
The  military  forces  of  the  United  States 
represent  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  between  operators  and 
strikers,  the  government  of  the  United 
States  is  absolutely  neutral.  We  are  here 
to  maintain  law  and  order.  We  are  here 
to  see  that  the  citizens  of  Gary  are  pro 
tected  in  their  peaceful  pursuits  and  that 

24 


Leonard  Wood 

individual  and  property  rights,  under 
the  law,  of  the  striking  employees  of  the 
steel  mills  are  protected,  as  well  as 
the  rights  of  other  citizens  and  of  the 
Steel  Corporation." 

"  General,"  said  the  strike  leader, 
"  that's  fair  enough.  That's  just  what 
we  want.  We  have  no  kick  against  the 
troops  being  in  Gary.  We're  glad  they're 
here  because  we  believe  that  under  your 
orders  they'll  give  us  square  treatment. 
Now  what  about  picketing?  " 

The  General's  answer  came  quick  and 
clear.  "  Picketing  in  reasonable  num 
bers  is  permissible.  Mr.  Anderson,  I 
mean  by  that,  that  your  picketing  must 
consist  of  offering  arguments,  remon 
strances,  anything  of  that  kind  which  you 
may  want  to  offer  to  the  workers  in  the 
steel  mills  to  bring  them  round  to  your 
point  of  view.  But  in  no  circumstances 
must  you  offer  them  personal  violence, 

25 


Leonard  Wood 

nor  must  you  use  threats.  I  say  reason 
able  numbers,  and  by  that  I  mean  that 
you  may  have  two  or  three  men  in  one 
part  of  the  street  and  two  or  three  twenty 
or  thirty  yards  away,  and  so  on." 

"  I  get  you,  General.  What  about 
picketing  at  the  gates?" 

"  You  may  have  a  small  party  on 
picket  duty  at  the  gates.  I  say  '  reason 
able  number '  and  restrict  you  to  small 
parties  not  because  I  do  not  have  abso 
lute  confidence  in  you  and  your  associates 
to  help  us  keep  order,  but  because  I  am 
afraid  that  if  these  parties  are  allowed 
to  consist  of  a  considerable  number  of 
men  they  are  liable  to  contain  some 
elements  that  stand  for  disorder  and  I 
am  afraid,  Mr.  Anderson,  that  you  will 
not  be  able  to  control  your  own  people." 

"  I  see  the  point.  How  about  meet 
ings?" 

"  Have  all  you  want.  It's  your  consti- 
26 


Leonard  Wood 

tutional  right.  But  have  them  indoors 
and  don't  let  any  one  preach  sedition. 
The  reason  I  don't  want  you  to  hold 
them  outdoors  is  because  outdoor  meet 
ings  cannot  be  controlled  by  the  men  in 
charge  of  them.  You  can  have  any  one 
you  want  to  address  your  meetings.  But 
you  will  be  personally  responsible  that 
no  disorder  occurs  and  that  nothing  is 
said  advocating  the  overthrow  of  Ameri 
can  institutions." 

There  was  one  man  who  stood  a  little 
apart  from  the  others,  apart  from  the 
town  officials,  apart  from  the  service  men, 
apart  from  the  labor  leaders.  His  ex 
pression  left  no  doubt  that  he  was  fully 
aware  of  the  drift  of  the  conversation. 

The  General  turned  to  him  with  finger 
pointed.  "  You,"  he  said  sharply,  "  you 
have  come  to  this  country  to  find  a  free 
dom  which  was  denied  you  in  the  land 
of  your  birth.  You  have  established 
27 


Leonard  Wood 

yourself  here  and,  I  understand,  have 
built  up  a  lucrative  business.  You  are  a 
man  of  some  education  and  should 
know  better  than  to  use  your  talents  for 
the  purpose  of  stirring  up  people,  who 
do  not  understand  our  language  or  our 
institutions,  to  violence  against  our  gov 
ernment.  You  have  done  everything  in 
your  power  to  overthrow  the  system  of 
law  and  order  which  gave  you  the  oppor 
tunity  to  live  and  work  and  prosper  to 
any  extent  that  your  native  abilities  per 
mitted.  I  want  you  to  understand  clearly 
that  you  stand  here  to-day  under  a  mili 
tary  regime  which  has  just  been  insti 
tuted  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  law 
and  order.  If  during  the  time  the  mili 
tary  are  in  control,  you  utter  or  publish 
inflammatory  matter  tending  to  stir  up 
these  people  to  the  point  where  they  dis 
regard  law  and  order  and  resort  to  vio 
lence,  you  will  be  promptly  suppressed 
28 


Leonard  Wood 

and,  if  necessary,  shot.     Do  you  under 
stand?" 

The  man  looked  up  into  the  General's 
face.  "  Yes,  sir,"  he  said  in  subdued 
tones. 

"  That's  all,"  said  the  General.  "  You 
can  go." 

The  sinister  little  man  slipped  from 
the  room,  and  the  General,  undisguisedly 
glad  that  he  was  gone,  passed  round  the 
semicircle,  shaking  hands  warmly  with 
each  man. 

"  Is  everything  clear  as  far  as  you  men 
are  concerned?  " 

The  men  nodded  their  heads. 

"  I  am  here  to  maintain  law  and  order, 
and  law  and  order  are  going  to  be  main 
tained.  Don't  you  want  to  help  maintain 
them  yourselves?  " 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"  Yes,  General!" 

"You  bet  you!" 

29 


Leonard  Wood 

"  You  are  simply  American  citizens 
protecting  your  own  homes.  I  want  you 
to  know  that  the  military  want  conflict 
less  than  anybody.  I  hope  there  will  be 
no  trouble,  now  that  we  understand  each 
other." 

The  men  filed  out  of  the  room.  From 
the  streets  came  the  sound  of  rolling 
trucks.  The  troops  were  arriving  in  the 
city.  But  there  was  nothing  but  patrol 
duty  for  them  to  do.  No  shot  was  fired 
during  the  military  occupation  of  Gary. 

Leonard  Wood  had  made  shooting 
unnecessary. 


Ill 

THE  thing  that  turned  the  trick  at 
Gary  and,  in  the  very  face  of  chaos, 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  deeper  apprecia 
tion  of  the  duties  of  government,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  the  loyalty  and  reason 
ableness  of  labor  on  the  other,  was  real 
statesmanship ;  and  it  was  that  most  effec 
tive  form  of  statesmanship  which  is 
based  on  the  qualities  which  differentiate 
an  intellectual  apparatus  from  a  human 
being.  General  Wood  wanted  to  under 
stand;  and  he  wanted  to  be  understood. 
He  questioned,  he  explained;  and  with 
sure  steps,  leaving  no  issues  vague,  he 
proceeded  from  point  to  point  until,  for 
all,  the  situation  was  clarified,  and  every 
one  knew  exactly  what  he  could  do  and 
what  he  could  not  do. 

31 


Leonard  Wood 

There  were  no  cloudy  generalizations 
to  bewilder  and  confuse.  The  General 
talked  a  language  which  the  common 
man  could  comprehend. 

"What  is  General  Wood's  attitude 
toward  union  labor?  "  asked  a  laboring 
man  in  the  course  of  a  meeting  in  Chicago 
of  Lodge  No.  83  of  the  Switchmen  of 
North  America,  a  week  or  ten  days  after 
General  Wood  came  to  Gary. 

John  Fitzpatrick,  president  of  the 
Chicago  Federation  of  Labor  and  organ 
izer  of  the  Gary  strike,  answered  the  ques 
tion.  "  I'll  tell  you  about  General  Wood's 
attitude  toward  union  labor,"  he  said.  "  I 
called  on  the  General  to  negotiate  for  an 
outdoor  labor  meeting  at  Gary.  The 
General  gave  the  permission  at  once,  and 
he  did  more  than  that.  He  helped  me  to 
find  a  good  place  to  hold  the  meeting. 
He  said  that  he  wanted  to  give  the  strikers 
a  square  deal  and  that  any  time  I  wanted 

32 


Leonard  Wood 

to  have  another  meeting  in  Gary,  he 
would  be  glad  to  give  the  necessary 
authority,  providing  the  meeting  was 
conducted  by  a  responsible  man  who 
would  guarantee  that  no  inflammatory 
speeches  would  be  made  or  anything  said 
against  the  United  States  government. 
I  hand  it  to  him.  There's  nothing  wrong 
with  General  Wood's  attitude  toward 
union  labor." 

And  the  "  Central  Labor  News "  of 
Gary,  rejoicing  at  the  "  square  deal  "  that 
labor  had  received,  remarked,  "  It  just 
only  goes  to  show  that  a  head  is  advisable 
in  cases  of  strife.  When  one  has  a  head 
that  is  trained  and  fair  no  one  can  help 
but  be  gratified." 

"A     disposition     to     preserve,"    says  • 
Burke,  "  and  an  ability  to  improve,  taken 
together,   would   be   my  standard   of   a 


statesman." 


33 


Leonard  Wood 

The  crisis  at  Gary  revealed  not  only 
Wood's  "  disposition  "  but  also  his  ability 
to  "  preserve."  What  of  his  disposition 
and  his  ability  to  "  improve  "? 

In  plain  vEnglish,  what  qualities  of 
constructive  statesmanship  does  he  pos 
sess?  Let  us  see. 

The  American  forces  captured  Santi 
ago  de  Cuba  in  July,  1898.  Two  weeks 
later,  .  Leonard  Wood,  who  had  dis 
tinguished  himself  in  the  organization  of 
the  Rough  Riders  and  had  proved  a  cool- 
headed  commander  in  the  field,  was 
appointed  Military  Governor  of  that  out 
wardly  beautiful  and  inwardly  loathsome 
pest-house  of  southeastern  Cuba. 

The  condition  of  Santiago,  when  Gen 
eral  Wood  assumed  command,  was  al 
most  beyond  belief.  "  You  could  smell 
it  ten  miles  at  sea,"  an  old  sea-captain 
declared.  The  buzzards  fed  on  the 
corpses  in  the  streets;  in  the  prison-pits, 

34 


Leonard  Wood 

men  and  women,  the  sane  and  the  mad, 
the  quick  and  the  dead,  the  innocent  and 
the  guilty,  lay  in  a  horrible  jumble  of 
reeking  humanity.  There  were  no  doc 
tors,  there  was  no  sanitation.  Men  died  in 
the  streets  and  were  left  to  the  dogs  be 
cause  the  living  were  too  weak  to  bury 
them.  There  was  no  government,  there 
were  no  law  courts,  there  were  no  police. 
It  was  a  desperately  sick  city,  and 
Leonard  Wood  the  physician  set  himself 
to  bring  it  back  to  health.  He  cremated 
the  dead ;  for  the  fever-stricken  he  estab 
lished  hospitals;  and  every  human  crea 
ture,  man,  woman  or  child,  that  could 
stagger  about  on  its  own  legs  he  set  to 
work  to  purge  and  disinfect  the  city. 
He  himself  cleared  out  the  prisons,  day' 
after  day  sitting  in  judgment,  as  the  poor 
wretches,  imprisoned  years  before  at  the 
whim  of  some  Spanish  Governor  Gen 
eral  who  had  long  ago  sailed  for  home 

35 


Leonard  Wood 

and  forgotten  their  existence,  were 
brought  to  the  light  of  day  for  trial,  and 
freedom.  He  was  everywhere  at  once, 
working  through  countless  subordinates, 
yet  seeming  to  give  to  each  detail  his 
personal  touch;  everlastingly  busy,  car 
rying  in  his  head  a  dozen  constructive 
projects,  yet  always,  it  seemed,  accessible; 
now  in  his  office,  working  out  a  code  of 
law  for  the  province,  now  on  the  street, 
suddenly  alighting  from  his  horse  and 
showing  a  clumsy  wielder  of  a  bamboo 
broom  that  it  is  easier  to  sweep  downhill 
than  up. 

"  I  was  frequently  in  Santiago  after 
the  surrender,"  said  Theodore  Roosevelt 
later,  "  and  I  never  saw  Wood  when  he 
was  not  engaged  on  some  one  of  his  mul 
titudinous  duties.  He  was  personally 
inspecting  the  hospitals;  he  was  per 
sonally  superintending  the  cleaning  of 
the  streets;  he  was  personally  hearing  the 

36 


Leonard  Wood 

most  important  of  countless  complaints 
made  by  Cubans  against  Spaniards, 
Spaniards  against  Cubans,  and  by  both 
against  Americans;  he  was  personally  en 
gaged  in  working  out  a  better  system  of 
sewerage;  or  in  striving  to  secure  the 
return  of  the  land  tillers  to  the  soil.  I  do 
not  mean  he  ever  allowed  himself  to  be 
swamped  by  mere  detail ;  he  is  much  too 
good  an  executive  officer  not  to  delegate 
to  others  whatever  can  safely  be  dele 
gated;  but  the  extraordinary  energy  of 
the  man  is  such  that  he  can  in  person 
oversee  and  direct  much  more  than  is 
possible  with  the  ordinary  man." 

"  Organization  is  the  simplest  thing  in 
the  world,"  said  Leonard  Wood,  "  if  you 
will  just  build  your  house  before  you  try 
to  place  the  bric-a-brac  on  the  mantel." 

Leonard  Wood  was  in  Santiago  as 
Governor  for  a  matter  of  sixteen  months. 
During  that  time  he  cleaned  and  drained 

37 


Leonard  Wood 

a  city  which  had  never  dreamed  of  sanita 
tion  before,  reducing  the  daily  death  rate 
from  two  hundred  to  ten,  superintended 
the  distribution  of  rations,  stamped  out 
two  or  three  epidemics  and  built  countless 
hospitals,  administered  justice,  worked 
out  a  code  of  laws  based  on  the  best  in 
the  American  and  Spanish  systems,  de 
vised  a  scheme  of  finance,  instituted  a 
criminal  and  civil  judiciary,  a  new 
public  school  system,  and  a  system  of 
taxation;  paved  streets  and  built  high 
ways,  dredged  the  harbor,  built  light 
houses,  increased  the  city's  water  supply; 
launched  an  engineering  project  for 
draining  the  malarial  swamps  near  the 
city  and  established  municipal  govern 
ments  throughout  the  province,  paying 
all  the  expenses  out  of  the  ordinary  reve 
nues  that  he  collected  and  actually  laying 
aside  a  matter  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  a 
month.  "  It  was,"  in  the  words  of  a 

38 


Leonard  Wood 

contemporary,  "  the  tour  de  force  of  a 
man  of  genius."  He  called  the  food 
profiteers  together,  talked  to  them  and 
sent  prices  tumbling  seventy-five  per  cent; 
set  the  press  free  to  abuse  him  at  its 
own  sweet  will;  governed  openly  and 
honestly;  and  became  the  idol  of  the 
province. 

"  It  was  not  so  much  what  General 
Wood  did  in  Santiago  as  what  he  was," 
said  a  shrewd  observer.  "  He  stood  for 
Americanism.  For  years  the  Cubans  had 
been  looking  to  the  great  nation  of  the 
North  for  succor  in  their  struggle.  They 
had  at  last  been  rescued,  and  the  Span 
iards  had  been  driven  from  the  Island. 
Their  ideal  of  the  bravery,  the  honesty, 
the  power,  the  wisdom  of  the  American 
was  high.  He  must  be  everything  which 
the  Spanish  oppressor  was  not.  And 
here  they  had  General  Wood,  the  Ameri 
can.  He  was  calm,  firm,  simple,  accessi- 
39 


Leonard  Wood 

ble  to  poor  as  well  as  to  rich.  He  was 
direct  and  absolutely  truthful  in  what  he 
said.  He  had  none  of  the  airs  of  the 
Spanish  governors — a  sturdy  man  in  a 
khaki  suit,  who  went  everywhere,  saw 
everything,  and  could  be  neither  flat 
tered,  nor  cajoled,  nor  deceived." 

He  governed  by  "  horse  sense  "  and  a 
shrewd  knowledge  of  human  nature. 
One  of  his  chief  difficulties,  it  happened, 
was  the  unwillingness  of  the  better  class 
of  Cubans  to  co-operate  in  the  civil 
government.  For  one  reason  and  another 
they  sulked  and  hung  back,  complaining 
that  too  many  of  the  minor  positions 
had  been  given  to  Spaniards.  In  a  small 
town  near  Santiago,  Wood  was  particu 
larly  anxious  to  secure  a  good  Cuban 
Mayor.  He  threw  out  intimations  to 
that  effect,  but  word  came  back  to  him 
that  none  of  the  men  he  considered  avail 
able  would  dream  of  taking  the  post. 
40 


Leonard  Wood 

One  day,  the  principal  storekeeper  of 
the  town  in  question  came  to  the  Gov 
ernor's  Palace  to  see  about  a  small  con 
tract  for  fodder.  After  concluding  the 
business  matter,  the  General  pretended  to 
consult  a  letter. 

"  By  the  way,  senor,"  he  remarked, 
"  you  are  an  old  resident  of  this  country 
and  perhaps  you  could  give  me  a  little 
advice." 

The  storekeeper  visibly  expanded  and 
assured  his  Excellency  that  he  was  at  his 
Excellency's  service. 

"  Is  it  true  then,"  Wood  continued, 
"  that  the  Cuban  gentlemen  are  very  in 
differently  educated  and  are  afraid  to 
accept  civil  offices  for  fear  of  appearing 
to  disadvantage  in  comparison  with  the 
Spanish  employees?" 

The  Cuban  blew  up  with  a  roar. 

"  Ah,  well,"  said  the  General  quietly 
when  the  storekeeper's  harangue  in  de- 

41 


Leonard  Wood 

fense  of  his  countrymen  was  over  at  last, 
"  I  merely  wanted  your  opinion  and  I 
am  sure  I  am  very  much  obliged. 
You'll  consider  this  conversation  private, 
of  course?  " 

The  storekeeper  swore  that  he  would, 
but  as  the  General  had  anticipated,  he 
told  the  whole  town.  A  few  days  later 
one  of  the  leading  Cuban  citizens  was 
appointed  Mayor,  and  promptly  ac 
cepted. 

Wood  kept  his  troops  altogether  in 
the  background,  exterminating  the  ban 
dits  who  infested  the  province  with  the 
Cuban  rural  guards  which  he  estab 
lished,  and  keeping  order  less  with* a 
show  of  force  than  by  virtue  of  his  own 
calm  and  steady  strength. 

It  happened  one  night  that  a  mob  of 

five   hundred   or  more   Cubans,   caught 

by  a  wave   of   recurrent  hatred   of   the 

Spaniard,  surrounded  the  Spanish  Club 

42 


Leonard  Wood 

and  started  to  bombard  it  with  bottles 
and  bricks.  A  breathless  messenger 
rushed  to  the  Palace  sentry  and  a  breath 
less  sentry  rushed  to  the  Governor. 

He  found  him  leisurely  folding  up  his 
papers.  "  I  have  heard  the  row,"  the 
General  remarked  quietly  before  the 
man  had  time  to  speak.  "  We  will  go 
over  and  stop  it." 

He   picked   up    his   riding-whip,    the 

only  weapon  he  ever  carried,  and,  accom- 

i 

panied  only  by  the  sentry,  strolled  across 
the  square  to  the  scene  of  hostilities.  The 
Spanish  Club  was  in  a  state  of  siege, 
with  the  excited  Cubans  throwing  mis 
siles  of  all  sorts  through  the  shattered 
panes,  and  trying  to  force  the  main  en 
trance. 

"  Just  shove  them  back,  sentry,"  said 
the  General. 

The  sentry  swung  his  gun  around  his 
head  and  through  the  lane  which  he 

43 


Leonard  Wood 

cleared  the  General  made  his  way  to  the 
front  door  of  the  club. 

"  Now  shoot  the  first  man  who  places 
his  foot  on  that  step,"  the  General  added, 
in  calm  and  unmistakable  Spanish. 
Then  he  turned  and  strolled  back  to  the 
Palace.  Within  an  hour  the  mob  had 
dispersed. 

Wood's  relations  with  the  people  of 
the  province  were  singularly  warm  and 
friendly.  Bewildered  by  their  first  ex 
perience  with  self-government,  the 
Cubans  brought  him  their  personal  as 
well  as  their  political  problems  with  the 
naive  trustfulness  of  children. 

One  morning  two  nuns  came  to  his 
office  from  the  convent  of  El  Cobre,  out 
side  the  city.  "  Your  Excellency,"  they 
said,  "  our  Mother  Superior  is  over 
worked.  But  she  refuses  to  take  a  vaca 
tion.  She  has  the  deepest  admiration 
for  the  work  your  Excellency  has  done 

44 


Leonard  Wood 

for  the  poor  Cuban  people.  We  want 
you  to  help  us.  We  thought  perhaps  if 
you  would  try  to  persuade  her " 

The  General's  customary  gravity  re 
solved  itself  into  a  grin.  He  was  not  in 
the  habit  of  exercising  the  arts  of  per 
suasion  on  Mothers  Superior. 

"  Tell  your  Mother  Superior,"  he  re 
sponded,  "  that,  as  Governor  of  Santiago, 
I  command  her  to  take  a  vacation." 

A  day  later  came  a  note  from  the 
Mother  Superior.  "  My  sisters  have 
been  altogether  too  officious.  I  do  not 
need  a  vacation  in  the  least.  But  I  yield 
to  higher  authority." 

His  position,  as  Protestant  executive 
of  a  province  which  was  completely 
Catholic,  held  possibilities  of  countless 
complications,  but  he  was  too  human  not 
to  be  broadly  tolerant  in  matters  of 
religion,  too  skilful  an  administrator  not 
to  be  able  to  disentangle  the  most  obvious 

45 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  snarls  which  Spanish  misrule  had 
brought  into  the  relations  of  church  and 
state,  and  too  good  a  diplomat  not  to 
keep  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  offi 
cials  of  the  church  while  he  was  doing 
it.  There  was  high  comedy  and  a  touch 
of  farce  in  more  than  one  situation  in 
which  the  matter-of-fact  man  in  khaki 
was  thrust  by  his  mediaeval  environ 
ment. 

It  happened  that  a  local  priest  was 
elevated  to  the  Bishopric  of  Santiago, 
and  as  Governor,  it  was  as  much  the 
General's  duty  to  take  a  part  in  the 
ceremonial  procession  as  it  was  the 
Bishop's  duty  to  attend  the  high  func 
tions  of  the  temporal  authority.  The 
streets  were  black  with  the  crowds  which 
had  come  from  miles  about,  and  through 
them,  under  the  Bishop's  canopy,  walked 
side  by  side  the  Catholic  prelate  and  the 
Protestant  son  of  Cape  Cod. 


Leonard  Wood 

"  Thank  God,  the  General  is  a  Catho 
lic!  "  went  the  cry.  "  We  did  not  know 
it." 

Now  the  Bishop  was  old  and  a  little 
feeble  and  altogether  moved  to  the 
depths.  He  found  that  swinging  a  cen 
ser  with  one  hand  was  a  wearying  occu 
pation  when  you  were  constantly  bestow 
ing  benedictions  with  the  other.  He 
held  it  in  the  Governor's  direction  with 
an  appealing  glance. 

The  Governor  understood  and  solemnly 
proceeded  to  swing  the  censer,  looking 
possibly  more  solemn  than  he  intended  to 
look  because  of  the  overwhelming  temp 
tation  to  grin.  The  Bishop  murmured 
words  of  gratitude. 

The  day  was  very  hot  and  the  line  of 
march  was  very  long.  The  Bishop's 
head  began  to  get  a  little  wobbly  on  his 
shoulders  as  he  bent  forward  again  and 
again  to  receive  the  kisses  of  the  devout 

47 


Leonard  Wood 

on  his  episcopal  ring.  Every  time  he 
bent  forward  his  mitre  would  slip  to  one 
side,  and  Leonard  Wood,  with  the  ut 
most  gravity,  would  shift  the  censer 
from  one  hand  to  the  other  as  he  straight 
ened  the  Bishop's  hat  for  him. 

"  I  thank  you,  I  thank  you ! "  sighed 
the  Bishop.  "  I  could  not  keep  this 
thing  on  without  you." 

At  last  the  interminable  march  was 
over.  "  Thank  God,  you  were  with 
me! "  exclaimed  the  old  man.  "  I  could 
not  have  made  it  if  you  had  not  been 
there  to  help  me! " 

"  I  am  afraid  I  may  have  shocked  the 
sensibilities  of  some,"  the  Gerieral  re 
marked.  "  From  your  point  of  view,  you 
know,  I  am  a  heretic  and  bound  for 
hell." 

"  Tush,  tush!  "  said  the  Bishop  with  a 
benign  smile,  "  you  are  a  good  Catholic; 
only  you  do  not  know  it." 


Leonard  Wood 

On  January  ist,  1900,  Leonard  Wood- 
became  Governor  General  of  the  whole 
island  of  Cuba.  There  was  a  magnifi 
cent  simplicity  in  the  instructions  with 
which  President  McKinley  set  him  to 
work:  "To  prepare  Cuba,  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  for  the  establishment  of  an  inde 
pendent  government,  republican  in 
form."  The  details  were  left  to  him. 
One  wonders  whether  any  man  in  the 
world's  history  ever  received  a  larger 
order  than  that. 

For  Cuba — beautiful,  chaotic,  filthy, 
ignorant,  enticing — had  not  the  remotest 
notion  of  the  meaning  of  self-govern 
ment.  The  only  government  she  had 
ever  known  was  the  crass  despotism  of 
the  Spanish  viceroys  and  the  very  word 
was  abhorred  and  held  in  scorn  by  the 
Cuban  people.  Only  a  small  group, 
educated  in  part  in  the  United  States, 
knew  anything  of  the  responsibilities  of 
49 


Leonard  Wood 

citizenship  in  a  republic.  The  rest  were 
as  ignorant  as  savages  of  even  the  first 
principles. 

Leonard  Wood  knew  that,  to  carry  out 
his  instructions,  he  would  have  to  accom 
plish  three  things — to  clean  up  the  Island 
and  stamp  out  yellow  fever,  to  reform 
the  judicial  system,  and  inject  into  a  dis 
illusioned  people  some  respect  for  the 
orderly  processes  of  law;  and,  last  and 
most  important,  to  create  a  body  of  citi 
zens  capable  of  carrying  on  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  nation's  affairs. 

The  first  was  a  task  of  science  and 
sanitation;  the  second,  an  undertaking  of 
clear-headed  administration;  but  the 
third  was  a  labor  for  Hercules. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Wood  that, 
having  a  four-track  mind,  he  embarked 
on  all  three  projects  at  once  and  used  the 
fourth  track  for  the  little  matter  of  re 
organizing  the  railroads,  reorganizing 
50 


Leonard  Wood 

the  postal  service,  establishing  munici 
palities,  drafting  a  new  marriage  code, 
settling  the  century-old  question  of 
church  property  appropriated  by  Spain, 
dredging  harbors,  building  highways, 
and  in  general  constructing,  largely  out 
of  nothing,  the  intricate  machinery  of 
modern  social  and  industrial  life. 

But  all  these  activities  were  secondary 
to  the  three  fundamental  problems  which 
Leonard  Wood  had  been  set  to  solve. 

The  cleaning  up  of  the  Island  was,  in- 
spite  of  the  frightful  conditions  in  most 
of  the  towns  and  villages,  a  compara 
tively  simple  matter,  but  the  yellow-fever 
terror  for  a  time  utterly  baffled  him  and 
the  scientists  he  set  to  work  to  banish  it. 
It  was  only  when  the  theory  that  the 
disease  was  carried  in  filth  gave  way 
gradually  to  the  conviction  that  it  was 
carried  by  the  mosquito,  that  the  solution 
of  the  problem  was  found.  The  story 
Si 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  men  who  gave  their  lives  volun 
tarily  to  prove  a  theory  is  a  singularly 
heroic  and  thrilling  one. 

Dr.  Lazaer,'  one  of  the  three  scientists 
in  charge  of  the  research,  offered  him 
self  as  a  subject  for  an  experiment  for 
the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  yel 
low  fever  could  be  transmitted  by  the 
bite  of  a  mosquito.  He  was  inoculated 
with  a  mosquito  known  to  be  infected, 
took  the  fever  arid  dieo\  Dr.  Carroll,»< 
another  of  the  three,  trfcreupofi  offered 
himself,  for  further  experimentation  and 
was  taken  ill  with  the  fever,  but  recov 
ered.  It  was  now  determined  that  no 
efforts  should  be  spared  to  prove  the 
theory  beyond  question.  The  physicians 
asked  General  Wood  for  authority  to 
make  experiments  on  human  beings  and 
for  money  to  pay  those  who  volunteered 
for  this  unusual  service  to  mankind. 
Wood  told  them  that  any  money  they 

52 


Leonard  Wood 

needed  would  be  forthcoming  and  that 
he  himself  would  assume  responsibility 
for  the  experiments. 

For  weeks  in  the  research  hospital 
at  Havana,  men  offered  themselves  for 
experiment,  knowing  clearly  the  peril 
they  were  incurring.  One  after  another 

. , ,  —  ffx&t  r*JL  cLjty  —  &M-6-*?-  • 

was  taken  ill  a-ticP  uiic  aTlu  aftol-kcr 
•d+ed.  For  weeks  the  physicians  strug 
gled  from  point  to  point  in  their 
researches,  until  at  last  the  secret  they 
were  after  stood  revealed.  It  was  a 
great  triumph  for  American  science  and 
a  great  triumph  for  Wood,  who  had  in 
fused  into  the  little  band  of  heroic  men 
his  own  spirit  of  enthusiasm  and  de 
termination. 

The  result  was  worth  all  it  cost.  In 
1901  the  percentage  of  yellow-fever  pa 
tients  in  the  hospitals  of  Cuba  was 
twenty-nine  in  every  thousand  of  the 
population.  In  1902,  on  the  whole 

53 


Leonard  Wood 

Island,  there  was  one  solitary  case  of 
yellow-fever. 

The  problem  of  the  judicial  system  of 
Cuba  was  intricate  in  itself  and  it  was 
not  made  any  less  intricate  by  the  psycho 
logical  factors  which  entered  into  it. 
The  code  of  laws  was  not  bad,  but  the 
system  under  which  it  had  been  adminis 
tered  by  the  Spanish  viceroys  smelled  to 
heaven  in  its  rank  injustice,  with  the  con 
sequence  that  the  average  Cuban  was 
thoroughly  convinced  that  law  was  an 
instrument  of  despotism  expressly  de 
signed  to  place  the  helpless  many  in  the 
grip  of  the  powerful  few.  He  shied 
from  the  law  when  he  met  it. 

Wood  went  straight  to  the  heart  of  the 
problem  and  gave  the  Cuban  respect  for 
law  by  giving  him  a  kind  of  legal  pro 
cedure  for  which  a  human  being  could 
have  respect.  He  abolished  antiquated 
methods;  removed,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
54 


Leonard  Wood 

incentive  and  the  opportunity  for  graft, 
together  with  the  judges  and  prosecutors 
who  had  been  the  most  notorious 
grafters;  cleaned  up  the  court  records, 
reformed  the  prison  system,  and  sent 
through  the  courts  of  the  Island  the 
word  that  henceforth  the  execution  of  the 
law  must  be  clean  and,  within  human 
limitations,  swift. 

The  effect  was  exactly  the  effect  that 
the  advent  of  intelligent  discipline  has 
on  a  roomful  of  children,  confused  by  the 
pointless  and  illogical  tyranny  of  a 
domineering  pedagogue.  The  Cuban 
people  calmed  down  almost  over  night. 
Jangled  nerves  became  quiet  in  the  pres- 
enc,e  of  a  power  that  moved  justly  and 
intelligently  without  respect  for  wealth 
or  social  position. 

Cuba  healthy,  Cuba  clean,  Cuba  law- 
abiding,  Cuba  organizing  herself  to  do 
business  with  an  energetic  world,  made  a 

55 


Leonard  Wood 

picture  that  was  singularly  appealing 
beside  the  picture  of  that  reeking  prison- 
pit  which  Cuba  had  been.  But  Wood 
knew  better  than  any  one  else  that  unless 
the  fabric  he  was  raising  had  a  solid 
foundation  of  trained  and  organized 
public  opinion  to  stand  on,  it  would  last 
as  long  as  American  troops  gave  author 
ity  to  American  ideas,  and  collapse  as 
soon  as  those  troops  were  withdrawn. 
Out  of  an  ignorant,  dependent,  supersti 
tious  population,  far  more  closely  akin 
to  the  Spanish  peasant  of  the  sixteenth 
century  than  to  the  average  American 
of  the  twentieth,  he  must  build  a  citizenry 
conscious  of  the  responsibilities  of  self- 
government  and  sufficiently  informed  to 
be  entrusted  with  the  delicate  machinery 
of  a  modern  state. 

There  was  nothing  to  build  on,  nothing 
except  the  instinctive  desire  of  the  aver 
age  human  being  to  live  in  safety  and  at 

56 


Leonard  Wood 

peace  with  his  neighbors,  and  to  have 
enough  to  eat.  On  this  foundation, 
Wood  built  Cuba's  temple  of  democracy. 

He  arranged  a  constitutional  conven 
tion,  appointed  a  commission  to  draw  up 
an  elective  law,  and,  on  the  theory  that 
the  only  way  for  the  Cubans  to  learn  the 
mechanics  of  self-government  was  by  ex 
perience,  held  municipal  elections  all 
over  the  Island  within  six  months  after 
he  took  control.  Meanwhile,  even  while 
he  was  making  the  people  observe  his 
sanitary  regulations,  he  explained  to 
them  with  characteristic  patience  and 
precision  exactly  why  it  was  necessary 
that  streets  and  houses  should  be  clean 
and  food  for  babies  should  be  reasonably 
wholesome.  There  was  no  need  to  force 
the  new  laws  upon  the  Cubans.  They 
obeyed  them  because  they  were  made 
to  understand  their  necessity. 

But  Wood  knew  that  the  education  of 

57 


Leonard  Wood 

the  adults  in  the  elementary  needs  of 
modern  existence  was  the  merest  stop-gap 
in  the  solution  of  his  problem.  He  saw 
clearly  that  what  Cuba  needed  to  be  a 
successful,  self-governing  republic  was 
a  new  point  of  view.  That  point  of 
view  was  summed  up  in  the  words,  All 
for  each  and  each  for  all. 

He  knew  that  the  one  way  to  inculcate 
the  new  spirit  in  the  Cuban  people  was 
through  the  schools.  With  all  the  re 
sources  at  his  command,  therefore,  he  set 
to  work  to  build,  out  of  nothing,  a  public 
school  system  that  would  reach  the  re 
motest  hovel  on  the  Island.  For  four 
years  he  spent  one  quarter  of  the  total 
state  revenue  of  Cuba  on  the  education  of 
Cuba's  children.  When  he  came,  there 
was  not  a  public  school  on  the  Island; 
when  he  departed,  there  were  three 
thousand  eight  hundred. 

Wood  knew  that  a  democracy  stands 


Leonard  Wood 

or  falls  by  the  quality  of  its  citizenship; 
he  knew  also  that  good  citizenship  means 
something  more  than  the  ability  to  read 
and  write  and  figure.  He  knew  that  an 
educational  system  which  fails  to  go  be 
yond  book-learning  educates,  in  fact,  as 
effectively  for  civic  corruption  as  it  edu 
cates  for  civic  virtue.  He  determined,- 
therefore,  that  the  book-learning  which 
the  Cuban  child  received  should  be  di 
rected  and  made  vital  by  definite  train 
ing  in  the  fundamental  principles  of 
democratic  government. 

Under  the  direction  of  a  Supervisor 
of  Moral  and  Civic  Training,  who  had 
successfully  established  "  school  cities  " 
in  some  of  the  schools  of  New  York's 
East  Side,  the  children  were  organized 
in  each  school  into  miniature  city  govern 
ments,  each  with  its  mayor  and  town 
council,  its  judges,  its  health  officers,  its 
police.  To  this  junior  government  much 

59 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  discipline  of  the  schools  was  dele 
gated  ;  for  Wood  saw  clearly  that  only  by 
giving  children  responsibility  can  a  sense 
of  responsibility  be  developed.    Through 
these  children  Wood  reached  the  adults 
as  he   could   never  have   reached   them 
with    all    the    proclamations    and    ordi 
nances  in  the  world,  emphasizing  and  re- 
emphasizing  the  fundamental  truth,  that 
if  a   democracy  is  to  be  successful,   its 
citizens   must   be   governed    in    all    the 
affairs  of  life  by  the  Golden  Rule,  the 
spirit  of  friendliness  and  co-operation,  of 
good  manners  and  cleanliness  and  hon 
esty  and  justice  and  kindness. 

The  children  responded  as  to  a  great 
adventure,  and  through  them,  gradually, 
Wood  inculcated  into  a  people  that  knew 
not  law,  the  meaning  of  government  and 
the  necessity  of  submitting  to  the  will  of 
the  majority. 

It  was  a  tremendous  achievement,  one 
60 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  greatest  contributions  of  modern 
times  to  the  advancement  of  democratic 
ideals.  In  the  dust  raised  by  his  more 
spectacular  triumphs  it  passed  unnoticed, 
but  the  steadiness  of  the  Cuban  republic 
is  a  monument  to  the  practical  vision  of 
the  man  who  taught  Cuba  citizenship. 

"  We  have  made  every  effort  down 
here  not  only  to  give  the  Cubans  a  just 
government,"  said  Wood  at  the  close  of 
his  administration,  "  but  to  give  them  a 
government  of  the  kind  they  fought 
for  and  for  which  so  many  of  them 
died." 

He  succeeded  to  a  remarkable  extent. 
"  All  conditions  were  ripe  for  a  period 
of  utter  anarchy,"  said  Roosevelt  at  the 
time,  "  and  under  a  weak,  a  foolish  or  a 
violent  man  this  anarchy  would  certainly 
have  come.  General  Wood,  by  his 
energy,  his  firmness,  his  common  sense 
and  his  moderation,  succeeded  in  work- 
61 


Leonard  Wood 

ing  as  great  an  improvement  as  was 
possible  in  so  short  a  time.  He  rendered 
services  which  if  performed  three  thou 
sand  years  ago  would  have  made  him  a 
hero  mixed  up  with  the  sun-god  in  vari 
ous  ways." 

It  was  Wood's  combination  of  sagacity 
and  quick  sympathy,  of  imagination  and 
common  sense,  of  firmness  and  tact,  of 
dignity  and  humor,  that  made  it  pos 
sible  for  him  to  advance  Cuba  in  the 
scale  of  civilization  four  hundred  years 
in  four.  He  was  a  human  being  and, 
in  consequence,  he  knew  how  to  live  and 
work  with  human  beings.  Men  trusted 
him,  because  he  always  meant  what  he 
said;  because  he  was  resolute;  because 
he  was  "square";  because  he  gathered 
about  him  the  ablest  men  he  could  find, 
listened  to  their  advice  and  took  it,  if 
convinced  that  it  was  sound ;  because  he 
played  no  favorites;  because  he  was 
62 


Leonard  Wood 

always  working,  not  for  himself,  but  for 
Cuba;  because  he  was  loyal,  and  be 
cause  he  never  lost  his  temper. 

There  was  a  great-hearted  humanness 
in  all  his  actions  that  won  him  a  degree 
of  affection  among  the  people  that  was 
something  more  than  popularity. 

He  had  a  friend  among  the  lesser 
clergy,  a  little  Spanish  priest  named 
Fernandez,  to  whom  Wood  had  been 
drawn  at  first  because  he  was  the  only 
Spanish  priest  who  had  been  willing  to 
conduct  memorial  services  for  President 
McKinley,  and  whom  he  came  to  like 
because  of  his  tireless  devotion  to  the 
poor  of  Havana  and  his  attractive  and 
vigorous  personality.  He  was  a  dusky, 
thick-set  Basque,  kindly  and  courageous, 
distinctly  a  masculine  type  after  the  Gen 
eral's  own  heart.  In  the  eyes  of  the 
world  he  was  among  the  least  of  the 
servants  of  God  in  Havana. 

63 


Leonard  Wood 

It  happened,  toward  the  end  of 
Wood's  administration,  that  the  Vatican, 
in  gratitude  for  the  settlement  of  many 
vexing  problems  of  long-standing  be 
tween  the  spiritual  and  secular  authori 
ties  in  Cuba,  desired  to  express  in  some 
tangible  fashion  its  appreciation  of 
American  fair  dealing,  and  through  the 
papal  delegate  in  Havana  inquired  of 
General  Wood  what  form  he  would  like 
the  Church's  gratitude  to  take. 

Wood  had  an  inspiration.  "  The 
parish  of  Montserrat,  the  richest  parish 
in  Havana,  is  vacant,"  he  said.  "  If  you 
want  to  honor  American  fair  dealing, 
make  Emilio  Fernandez  priest  there  for 
life." 

From  Rome  came  the  answer,  "  It 
shall  be  as  the  Governor  General  re 
quests." 

Wood  himself  informed  the  little 
priest.  The  man  was  incredulous.  The 


Leonard  Wood 

church  of  Montserrat  was  the  greatest  in 
Havana.  When  he  realized  at  last  that 
his  good  fortune  was  no  dream,  he 
begged  that  General  Wood  and  Mrs. 
Wood  be  his  spiritual  sponsors  at  his 
installation.  The  General  said  it  was 
impossible. 

"You  forget,  we  are  Protestants,"  he 
said. 

"  No  one  who  has  been  as  fair  as  you," 
the  little  priest  insisted,  "  can  be  an 
enemy  of  Christ." 

Special  dispensation  was  granted,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  church  history  a 
Catholic  priest  was  led  by  the  hands  of 
Protestants  thrice  around  his  church  to 
his  installation.  It  was  General  Wood 
who  knocked  formally  on  the  door  of 
the  church  asking  for  admission  for  his 
friend  and  it  was  the  General  and  Mrs. 
Wood  who  finally  presented  him  at  the 
altar. 

65 


Leonard  Wood 

The  incident  was  characteristic;  and  it 
is  noteworthy  that  the  little  priest  "  made 
good."  He  is  to-day  a  Monseigneur  of 
the  Pope's  household. 

Men   are  by  nature  hero-worshipers, 
it  seems,  and  the  race  or  nationality  seems 
to  make  little  difference.    Once  they  take 
a  fancy  to  one  of  their  leaders,  they  be 
come  busier  than  forty  gossips  in  spread 
ing  the  word  of  his  superlative  qualities. 
It   was    so   with    the   people   of    Cuba. 
Once  the  shyness,  the  suspicion,  the  in 
born    antagonism    to    "  the    foreigner " 
gave  way,  first,  to  respect,  then  to  ad 
miration,  then  to  affection,  stories  began 
to  fly  from  mouth  to  mouth  of  the  Gov 
ernor's  more  or  less  superhuman  virtues. 
They  were   the  kind   of  stories   people 
like   to  hear,   stories   that   amounted   to 
little    enough    in    themselves,    but    that 
showed  a  wise  mind  and  a  large  heart. 
The   directress   of   a    fashionable    girls' 
66 


Leonard  Wood 

boarding-school  told  how  the  Governor 
had  accepted  the  invitation  to  her  com 
mencement  exercises  and  had  won  the  old 
Spanish  families  by  going  to  the  trouble 
of  coming  in  gold  lace  with  all  his  staff, 
knowing  that  gold  lace  and  ceremony 
were  what  the  school  wanted  to  see.  A 
leper  in  the  San  Lazaro  had  a  different 
kind  of  story  to  tell. 

A  visitor  to  the  hospital,  wandering 
down  a  long  corridor,  came  upon  him 
where  he  lay  on  his  cot,  white  and  ema 
ciated.  He  told  his  history,  which  was 
melancholy  enough,  filled  as  it  was  with 
the  horrors  of  "Unclean,  unclean!" 
Then,  with  a  faint  light  in  his  eyes  he 
pointed  to  the  fresh  linen  on  his  bed, 
the  polished  floors,  the  walls  without  a 
spot. 

"  It  was  not  always  this  way,"  he  said. 
"  But  General  Wood  sees  to  it  that  we 
are  cared  for  now.  He  comes  over  here 

I  67 


Leonard  Wood 

and  visits  us  and  sits  and  talks  and  finds 
out  what  we  want." 

"You  mean  the  Military  Governor?" 
exclaimed  the  visitor,  who  knew  some 
thing  of  governors  from  the  Spanish 
days. 

"  WhY>  yes,  that  is  General  Wood,"  he 
answered.  "  He  is  a  man.  He  has  a 
heart.  He  tries  to  help  us  all  he  can. 
The  food  has  not  been  so  good  lately. 
I  mean  to  complain  to  General  Wood 
the  next  time  he  comes  and  he  will 
change  it." 

The  Cuban  people  found  Leonard 
Wood  a  friend  at  a  time  when  they 
needed,  above  all,  a  man  with  the  patience 
and  forbearance  of  a  friend.  They  had 
been  clubbed  by  the  Spaniard  to  the 
point  of  exhaustion,  and  any  suggestion 
of  a  rule  by  force,  on  the  part  of  the 
rescuer,  even  temporarily,  would  have 
driven  them  to  madness. 
68 


Leonard  Wood 

"  He  succeeded  in  organizing  our  gov 
ernment,"  said  La  Lucha,  a  leading 
paper  of  Havana,  commenting  on  Gen 
eral  Wood's  candidacy  for  the  Presi 
dency  almost  twenty  years  later,  "  with 
out  taking  a  single  false  step,  without 
wounding  a  single  Cuban  susceptibility. 
If  what  Wood  did  here  were  better 
known  in  his  own  country;  if  the  diffi 
culties  he  had  to  overcome  to  establish 
the  Cuban  government  were  known  in  all 
their  details  by  those  who  must  elect 
him,  the  work  accomplished  by  this  illus 
trious  man  would  of  itself  suffice  to  make 
him  in  the  eyes  of  his  people  one  of  the 
most  farsighted  politicians  and  one  of 
the  most  sagacious  executives  ever  born 
within  the  territory  of  the  American 
Union.  That  work  as  chief  executive  of 
Cuba  is  enough  to  make  the  reputation 
of  a  great  statesman,  of  an  energetic  man 
of  inflexible  justice  and  courage,  and  to 


Leonard  Wood 

guarantee  the  success  of  his  administra 
tion  at  the  head  of  the  public  interests 
of  his  country." 

Wood  sought  by  his  moderation  to  win 
the  confidence  not  only  of  the  Cubans, 
but  of  the  Spanish  loyalists  who  formed 
an  influential  part  of  the  population.    He 
put  the  administration  of  the  details  of 
this  government  entirely  in  their  hands, 
gradually  bringing  together  the  opposing 
groups,  by  stirring  in  both  an  enthusiasm 
for    a   common    ideal.      It   was    a    real 
achievement,  and  by  a  skilful  stroke  he 
made    the   new   unity   dramatic    to    the 
people  of  the  Island.     On  the  night  of 
the   inauguration   of  Cuba's   first  presi 
dent,  he  persuaded  certain  members  of 
the  newly  elected  Cuban  Congress  to  call 
with  him  at  the  Spanish  Club,  where  the 
loyalists    were    toasting    King   Alfonso; 
and    persuaded    influential   members   of 
the  Spanish  Club  in  turn  to  come  to  the 
70 


Leonard  Wood 

inauguration  ball  and  toast  the  Cuban 
republic.  It  was  an  imaginative  piece 
of  diplomacy  that  appropriately  capped 
four  years  of  government  by  sympathy, 
sagacity,  courage  and  a  sense  of  humor. 


IV 

"T^HE    part   played    by    the    United 
1     States  in  Cuba,"  wrote  Theodore 
Roosevelt  after  his  retirement  from  the 
Presidency,  "  has  been  one  of  the  most 
honorable  ever  played  by  any  nation  in 
dealing  with  a  weaker  Power,  one  of  the 
most  satisfactory  in  all  respects;  and  to 
General  Wood  more  than  to  any  other 
one  man  is  due  the  credit  of  starting  this 
work  and  conducting  it  to  a  successful 
conclusion  during  the  earliest  and  most 
difficult  years.     General  Wood,  of  course, 
incurred  the  violent  hatred  of  many  dis 
honest  schemers  and  unscrupulous  adven 
turers,  and  of  a  few  more  or  less  well- 
meaning   persons   who   were   misled    by 
these  schemers  and  adventurers;  but  it  is 
astounding  to  any  one  acquainted  with 

72 


Leonard  Wood 

the  facts  to  realize,  not  merely  what  he 
accomplished,  but  how  he  succeeded  (in 
Cuba  and  later  in  the  Philippines)  in 
gaining  the  good  will  of  the  enormous 
majority  of  the  men  whose  good  will 
could  be  won  only  in  honorable  fashion. 
Spaniards  and  Cubans,  Christian  Fili 
pinos  and  Moros,  Catholic  ecclesiastics 
and  Protestant  missionaries — in  each  case 
the  great  majority  of  those  whose  opinion 
was  worth  having — grew  to  regard  Gen 
eral  Wood  as  their  special  champion  and 
friend,  as  the  man  who,  more  than  any 
other,  understood  and  sympathized  with 
their  peculiar  needs  and  was  anxious  and 
able  to  render  them  the  help  they  most 
needed." 

So  much  for  the  statesman,  combining 
in  himself  those  two  essential  qualities  of 
the  highest  public  service,  the  "  disposi 
tion  to  preserve "  and  the  "  ability  to 
improve." 

73 


Leonard  Wood 

But  what  of  his   qualities  of  leader 
ship?     Statesmen,   even   true  statesmen, 
perhaps,  may  be  divided  into  two  great 
classes,  those  who  listen  for  the  "  voice 
of  the  people,"  and  hearing  it,  or  seem 
ing  to  hear  it,  express  its  verdict  in  laws 
and   decrees,   irrespective   of  their  own 
judgment  of  its  justice;  and  those  who, 
because  of  their  training  and  knowledge 
of   men    and    history    having    a    deeper 
vision  than  most  men,  courageously  strike 
a  new  course  and  prevail  on  their  fellow- 
citizens  to  follow  them. 

Is   Leonard  Wood   a   human   seismo 
graph,  quivering  responsive  to  each  dis 
tant  rumbling  of  popular  vagary,  or  is  he 
a  leader  of  men? 
Let  us  see. 

The  great  War  broke  on  the  conscious 
ness  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
American  people  with  a  terrific  shock. 
But  to  Leonard  Wood  it  brought  no  sur- 
74 


Leonard  Wood 

prise.  He  was  an  old  friend  of  Lord 
Roberts  and  had  a  wide  acquaintance 
among  European  soldiers  and  statesmen. 
He  knew  that  war  was  in  the  air  and 
he  knew  that  when  it  came,  the  United 
States  could  not  remain  at  the  same 
time  honorable  and  untouched. 

He  declared  in  emphatic  terms  that 
the  American  people  were  without  ade 
quate  defense  to  meet  the  peril  that 
might  any  day  confront  them.  "  We 
must  prepare!"  he  cried. 

His  appeal  met  no  response.  He 
sought  to  establish  experimental  military 
training  camps  for  students  in  their  sum 
mer  vacations.  He  was  told  that  there 
was  no  money  available  for  such  a  pur 
pose.  He  smiled,  set  his  jaw  and  set  to 
work  to  create  the  camps  without  money. 
He  secured  permission  to  use  army  equip 
ment  on  the  promise  that  the  War 
Department  should  incur  no  expense 

75 


Leonard  Wood 

through  this  exhibition  of  generosity;  and 
instituted  camps  at  Gettysburg  and 
Monterey  on  a  voluntary  basis,  the 
students  paying  their  own  expenses. 
This  was  in  1913.  Out  of  a  popu 
lation  of  a  hundred  million,  two 
hundred  and  twenty-two  young  men  re 
sponded.  But  those  few  became  apos 
tles.  Wood  lived  with  them,  worked 
with  them,  talked  with  them.  His  burn 
ing  sincerity  set  them  afire.  They  began 
to  see  the  need,  and  to  feel  the  thrill  of 
filling  it.  They  formed  an  organization 
to  promote  preparedness.  The  following 
year  there  were  not  two  camps  but  four, 
and  seven  hundred  students  attended 
them.  Again  Wood  lived  and  worked 
and  talked  with  the  men,  inspiring  them 
with  a  passion  for  national  service  they 
had  not  known  before. 

The  War  broke  out  in  Europe.    With 
a  deeper  anxiety,  a  deeper  fervor,  Wood 


Leonard  Wood 

called  on  America  to  prepare.  The  great 
bulk  of  the  people  were  too  busy  to 
listen,  and  the  Administration  too  happy, 
where  it  floated  on  pacifistic  dreams,  to 
heed  his  warnings.  Through  the  press, 
Roosevelt  thundered  like  a  prophet  of 
Israel,  and  week  in,  week  out,  before 
gatherings  large  and  gatherings  small, 
here,  there,  and  everywhere  through  the 
country,  Wood  preached  the  gospel  of 
national  preparedness  with  a  patriotic 
fervor  which  had  never  before  burned  in 
him  with  so  clear  a  flame.  The  youth  of 
the  country  felt  it,  though  their  elders 
were  callous.  Thirty-five  hundred  or 
more  attended  the  camps  at  Plattsburg 
and  elsewhere  that  first  summer  after  the 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania. 

Gradually,  as  German  submarines 
brought  the  War  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
heart  and  conscience  of  America,  Roose 
velt's  magnificent  thunderings  and 

77 


Leonard  Wood 

Wood's  restrained  but  glowing  eloquence 
began  to  have  their  effect.  Here  a  group 
and  there  a  group,  catching  fire,  formed 
organizations  to  spread  the  knowledge 
of  the  need  of  national  defense.  The 
Administration,  sensitive  to  popular  cur 
rents,  swung  overnight  from  extreme 
opposition  to  extreme  support.  Wood 
took  heart.  It  was  only  when  the  Ad 
ministration,  having  spoken  the  grand 
word,  let  the  necessary  action  evaporate 
in  the  hands  of  a  war  secretary  openly 
opposed  to  all  preparedness  for  war,  that 
Wood,  unconsulted  and  unsupported  by 
the  authorities,  once  more  set  forth  to  lead 
the  crusade. 

Sixteen  thousand  men  attended  the 
Plattsburg  camps  during  the  summer 
that  succeeded.  All  summer  long,  Wood 
traveled  from  camp  to  camp.  Present 
or  absent,  he  was  the  guiding  spirit  of 
each  camp  and  the  inspiration  of  the  men 

78 


Leonard  Wood 

who  had  dropped  their  business,  their 
law,  their  medicine,  to  be  trained  for 
service  when  the  call  came.  From  dawn 
until  night  he  was  among  the  men,  in 
specting,  praising,  criticizing,  directing 
their  manoeuvers  by  day,  and  under  the 
stars  at  night  explaining  to  an  eager 
circle  the  mysteries  of  military  strategy. 
It  is  difficult  to  express  in  cold  phrases 
the  effect  that  Leonard  Wood  had  upon 
the  men  whom  he  taught  and  trained  in 
the  rudiments  of  armed  defense  during 
that  lowering  summer  preceding  Amer 
ica's  entrance  into  the  War.  They  were 
not  soldiers  by  inclination;  if  ever  there 
were  free  citizens  arming  themselves  to 
defend  their  homes  and  their  liberties, 
these  were  such.  And  they  followed  him 
with  whole-hearted  devotion  because  they 
knew  that  it  was  to  the  defense  of  the 
best  they  possessed  that  he  was  leading 
them. 

79 


Leonard  Wood 

It  happened  one  warm  September  day 
that  a  company  of  rookies  was  reclining 
on  a  wooded  slope  in  the  foothills  of  the 
Adirondacks.  One  of  them  was  a  small 
town  cynic,  a  man  who  neither  in  spirit 
nor  mental  attitude  seemed  to  "  belong," 
and  his  comrades  had  rather  wondered 
why  he  had  come  at  all. 

"  I  have  been  studyin'  the  General," 
he  remarked  as  he  mopped  his  brow. 
"  I've  been  studyin'  him  ever  since  I 
came  to  this  fool  place.  I  have  heard 
him  talk  and  I  have  heard  you  fellows 
talk  about  him.  Now  I  always  have  said 
that  no  one  ever  does  anything  in  this 
life  except  for  what  he  can  get  out  of  it. 
So  I  have  been  lookin'  to  see  what  Gen 
eral  Wood  is  goin'  to  get  out  of  this 
preparedness  game  he  has  been  workin' 
so  hard.  And  I  sure  have  been  puz 
zled."  There  was  a  pause  in  his  solilo 
quy.  Then  he  added,  "  He  can't  get  any 
80 


Leonard  Wood 

more  pay,  he  can't  get  any  more  rank. 
By  thunder,  I  have  almost  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  is  doin'  it  for  his 
country!  " 

He  was.  He  had  nothing  to  gain,  ex-  » 
cept  the  devotion  of  his  countrymen ;  and 
he  had  much  to  lose.  For  the  Adminis 
tration  scarcely  concealed  its  displeasure 
at  his  efforts  to  create  a  public  opinion 
which  should  demand  adequate  national 
defense;  and  more  than  once  his  official 
neck  was  in  danger.  He  continued  to 
fight,  undeterred. 

The  war  came  to  America  as  he  had 
prophesied  it  would  come.  One  after 
another  the  plans  he  had  suggested  long 
before,  while  there  was  yet  time,  were 
tardily  adopted.  The  men  he  had 
trained  at  the  Plattsburg  camps  became 
the  backbone  of  the  new  great  army. 
But  for  Leonard  Wood  there  came 
neither  recognition  for  the  service  he  had 
81 


Leonard  Wood 

rendered,  nor  the  opportunity  to  crown 
that  service  with  leadership  at  the  front 
He  appealed  for  service  abroad,  but  his 
letters  to  the  authorities  in  power  were 
not  even  acknowledged.  "  Wood  ought 
to  be  court-martialed,"  a  leading  member 
of  the  President's  personal  entourage  was 
heard  to  exclaim. 

Partly   undoubtedly   because    he   had 
advocated  preparedness  while  prepared 
ness  was  not  looked  upon  with  favor  by 
the  Administration;   partly   because   he 
was  a  friend  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  and, 
next  to  Roosevelt,  the  outstanding  figure 
in  the  opposition,  having  political  possi 
bilities  and  an  enthusiastic  following;  and 
partly  because  he  was  masculine-minded 
during  a  period  when  hazy  benevolence 
was  accepted  by  the  powers  in  control  as 
synonymous  with  virtue  and  an  effective 
substitute   for  training   and   experience, 
Leonard  Wood  fared  as  ill  at  the  hands 
82 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  Administration  as  that  Adminis 
tration  dared  to  let  him  fare,  and  as  his 
extraordinary  ability  as  an  organizer  al 
lowed.  Successive  attempts  were  made 
to  discredit  and  humiliate  him  and  lay 
him  for  all  time  on  the  shelf.  Wood's 
friends  chuckled  quietly  as  each  attempt 
ended  in  an  extension  over  a  new  great 
territory  of  the  suspicion  that  the  War 
Department  was  playing  peanut  politics, 
while,  with  an  ability  which  could  not 
be  denied,  he  turned  one  more  effort 
at  his  destruction  into  an  opportunity  to 
do  another  job  well. 

At  the  very  opening  of  the  War,  the 
Department  of  the  East,  of  which  he 
was  commander,  was  abolished  and  he 
was  offered  his  choice  of  the  Philippines, 
Hawaii  or — in  the  disingenuous  phras 
ing  of  the  Secretary's  order — "  the  less 
important  post "  at  Charleston,  South 
Carolina.  He  chose  Charleston,  where 

83 


Leonard  Wood 

there  was  work  to  do,  and  immediately 
set  about  to  establish  numerous  training 
»  camps  in  the  southeastern  states.  It  was 
four  months  later  that  he  received  the 
order  that  placed  him  in  command  of  the 
cantonment  at  Camp  Funston  in  Kansas 
and  of  the  forty-five  thousand  untrained 
and  undisciplined  young  Americans  who 
were  to  constitute  the  89th  Division  of 
the  National  Army. 

It  was  not  the  order  that  General 
Wood  was  most  eager  to  receive,  but 
the  problem  it  presented  was  one  after 
his  own  heart.  He  saw  not  an  army,  but 
forty-five  thousand  individual  young 
men  who  needed  guidance  and  leader 
ship.  And  with  all  that  was  in  him  he 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  giving  them 
both. 

It  was,  indeed,  in  no  sense  an  army  of 
which  he  took  command  in   those  first 
days  of  September,  1917.    The  men  were 
84 


Leonard  Wood 

drafted  men  from  the  great  agricultural 
states  of  the  Middle  West,  mainly 
farmers  and  day-laborers,  without  physi 
cal  grace  or  sense  of  discipline.  General 
Wood  appealed  for  uniforms.  There 
were  none.  He  bought  on  his  own 
authority  forty-five  thousand  sets  of 
blue  denim  overalls  with  underwear, 
blankets  and  comfortables.  He  appealed 
for  rifles.  There  were  none.  He  set  the 
men  to  work  making  wooden  rifles.  He 
appealed  for  artillery  pieces.  There 
were  none.  He  set  the  men  to  work 
making  cannon  with  wooden  breech 
blocks,  projectiles,  caissons,  set  on  sleds 
and  the  running-gear  of  old  wagons. 
It  occurred  to  the  men  that  this  was 
rather  good  fun. 

In  their  blue  overalls  with  leggirts, 
caps  and  belts  and  drilling  with  their 
homemade  rifles,  the  men  began  to  look 
and  feel  like  soldiers. 

85 


Leonard  Wood 

Wood  was  struck  from  the  first  by 
their  earnestness  and  sincerity,  their  evi 
dent  eagerness  to  do  their  full  duty.  It 
was  his  task,  as  he  conceived  it,  to  keep 
undulled  this  sense  of  personal  responsi 
bility  and  self-respect  even  while  out  of 
his  forty-five  thousand  units  he  built 
his  great  machine. 

"  Never  laugh  at  a  man  however  crude 
he  looks,"  came  the  order  from  the 
General's  headquarters  to  the  officers  of 
the  Division.  "  There  isn't  a  man  in  the 
Division  who  does  not  at  heart  want  to 
do  well.  Let  nothing  in  your  method  of 
training  or  your  conduct  toward  your 
men  tend  to  destroy  their  own  self- 
respect.  Remember  that  these  men  are 
human  beings  with  ambitions,  hopes  and 
a  hundred  changing  emotions.  Treat 
them  as  human  beings.  If  they  are  to  be 
real  soldiers  they  must  be  proud  of  their 
profession,  proud  of  their  officers,  proud 
86 


Leonard  Wood 

of  themselves  as  soldiers.  It  is  your  part 
to  see  that  such  loyalty  is  developed 
and,  once  developed,  that  it  is  up 
held." 

In  an  extraordinarily  short  time  the 
spirit  of  the  General  began  to  find  its 
reflection  in  the  attitude  of  the  men.  It 
was  rumored  that  the  General  had  sent 
out  the  word,  "  See  that  the  private  gets 
a  fair  deal;  he's  the  man  least  able  to 
take  care  of  himself,"  and  men  who  had 
expected  militaristic  methods  began  to 
take  heart.  "  He  never  said  a  mean 
thing  to  a  man,"  said  one  of  them  after 
wards,  half  in  awe.  He  never  expressed 
impatience  or  dissatisfaction  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  men.  No  man  ever  saw  him 
angry.  Day  in,  day  out,  he  was  among 
them,  as  laboriously  they  passed  through 
the  first  stage  of  the  transition  from  civil 
ian  to  soldier,  speaking  here  a  word  of 
praise,  giving  there  a  word  of  quiet  ad- 

87 


Leonard  Wood 

vice,  patient,  considerate  and  endlessly 
helpful. 

It  happened  one  day  before  the 
Division  was  three  weeks  old  that  the 
General,  riding  about  the  camp,  came 
upon  a  group  of  men  resting  on  the 
side  of  a  hill.  He  stopped  to  talk  to 
them. 

They  answered  his  greeting  without 
budging  from  where  they  lay  stretched 
comfortably  on  their  backs. 

"  The  sun's  pretty  hot,"  remarked  the 
General.  "  Are  your  undershirts  wet?  " 

The  men  "  allowed  "  that  they  were; 
but  did  not  budge. 

The  General's  aide  was  a  Southerner, 
with  a  hair-trigger  temper  which  at  that 
point  went  off.  "  What  do  you  mean  by 
lying  there?  Why  don't  you  stand  at 
attention?" 

The  General  waved  him  back  and  as 
his  aide  subsided,  turned  quietly  to  the 


Leonard  Wood 

men  again.  "  You  don't  know  who  I  am, 
do  you?  " 

The  men  in  blue  denim  admitted  that 
they  did  not. 

"  I  am  your  Division  commander, 
General  Wood,"  he  said. 

The  men  scrambled  to  their  feet.  "  Is 
you  Wood?"  exclaimed  one  of  them,  a 
Kansas  farmer  boy,  with  wide  eyes. 

The  General,  with  the  faintest  sug 
gestion  of  a  smile  playing  about  the 

corners  of  his  mouth,  admitted  that  he 

« 

was.  Then,  quietly,  he  talked  to  them 
of  the  profession  of  arms  and  of  a  certain 
honorable  custom  which  had  come  down 
from  the  days  of  the  knights.  "  When  a 
knight  met  a  friend,"  he  explained,  "  he 
raised  the  visor  of  his  helmet  that  they 
might  recognize  each  other  as  comrades 
in  arms;  and  that  is  why  soldiers  salute 
each  other  to-day." 

The   men   straightened   up   and   their 


Leonard  Wood 

hands  flew  to  their  caps.  The  General 
answered  the  salute  gravely,  and  rode  on, 
and  a  dozen  raw  recruits  stared  after 
him,  sharply  conscious  that  they  had  had 
a  memorable  experience. 

Wood  knew  that  to  many  a  young  re 
cruit  the  matter  of  the  salute  was  one 
of  the  most  galling  features  of  soldiering, 
and  he  took  every  occasion  he  could  find 
to  make  the  men  understand  that  there 
was  no  humiliation  in  the  act.  He  was 
driving  a  motor-car  along  a  country  road 
one  day,  when  he  saw  a  doughboy,  who 
was  walking  with  a  girl  some  distance 
ahead,  suddenly  bend  down  as  the  motor 
approached,  and  tie  his  shoe-lace. 

The  General  stopped  the  car  and 
called  the  soldier  to  him. 

"You  saw  me,  didn't  you?" 

The  man  shuffled  about  uneasily. 
"  Yes,  sir,"  he  said. 

"  But  in  order  to  avoid  saluting  me," 
90 


Leonard  Wood 

the  General  went  on,  "  you  pretended  to 
tie  your  shoe-string.  That  was  it,  wasn't 
it?" 

Reluctantly  the  man  admitted  that  that 
was  it. 

"  Now  I'll  tell  you  what  I  would  have 
done  if  Fd  been  in  your  place,"  the 
General  remarked.  "  I'd  have  said  to 
my  girl,  '  Now  watch  me  make  the  old 
man  take  my  salute!'  Get  the  point?" 

The  soldier  saluted.  "  Yes,  sir,"  he 
said,  grinning. 

The  General  answered  the  salute  with 
marked  precision;  and  drove  on.  An 
other  soldier  had  learnt  the  lesson  of  the 
interdependence  of  officers  and  men 
necessary  to  make  that  mass  known  as  an 
army. 

On  another  occasion  a  rookie  strolled 
up  to  the  General  as  he  was  standing 
beside  his  car.  There  was  no  suggestion 
of  a  salute. 

9' 


Leonard  Wood 

"How  long  have  you  been  here?" 
asked  the  General. 

"  Three  weeks." 

"  Why  don't  you  salute?  Don't  you  see 
that  flag  on  the  car?  " 

"  Oh,"  said  the  doughboy  with  interest. 
"  I  thought  that  was  your  family  service 
flag.  Say,  how  long  have  you  been 
here?  " 

The  General  explained. 

"Well,  I  never!"  the  soldier  ejaculated. 
"  IVe  got  in  wrong,  ain't  I?  I  want  to 
shake  hands  with  you  and  ask  you  to 
forget  it." 

The  General  spied  a  sergeant  in  the 
background,  walking  up  and  down  in  a 
manner  which  indicated  that  things 
would  shortly  go  hard  with  that  particu 
lar  doughboy;  and  to  the  General  he  sup 
plied  the  final  element  of  comedy  that 
the  situation  needed.  He  gravely  shook 
hands  with  the  genial  youth. 
92 


Leonard  Wood 

"  It  may  not  have  been  discipline,"  he 
remarked  afterwards,  "  but  I'd  have  been 
a  cad  if  I  hadn't  shaken  hands  with 
him." 

It  was  inevitable  that  incidents  such 
as  these,  carried  on  the  lips  of  awestruck 
boys,  should  have  a  wide  effect.  It 
became  known  that  the  General  never 
waited  for  a  man  to  salute  him  first,  and 
soldiers  began  to  brag  of  "  how  they  beat 
the  old  man  to  it." 

Wood's  hold  on  the  men  became  in 
creasingly  firm  and  sure  as  stories  of  his 
efforts  for  their  well-being  trickled 
through  the  Division.  He  could  be  seen 
at  all  hours  on  horseback  or  afoot  in 
specting  here,  examining  there,  the  first 
man  out  of  bed  in  the  morning,  beating 
even  "  reveille,"  and  the  last  to  bed  at 
night.  Every  day  he  was  in  the  hospital 
wards  and  his  cheerful,  "  How  are  you, 
old  man?  Getting  along  all  right?" 

93 


Leonard  Wood 

addressed  to  one  man  or  to  a  dozen 
would  echo  and  re-echo  among  the  cots, 
until  men  whom  the  General  never  saw 
became  somehow  convinced  that  they 
had  personally  felt  the  warmth  of  his 
friendly  solicitude. 

"  Why  are  the  men  so  fond  of 
Wood?"  one  of  his  staff  officers  was 
asked. 

"  I'll  tell  you  why,"  was  the  answer. 
"  Because  Bill  Smith  in  the  rear  rank 
thinks  that  as  far  as  the  General  is  con 
cerned,  he  is  the  whole  Division." 

One  day  a  private  who  had  had  a  little 
more  whiskey  than  was  good  for  him  went 
up  to  General  Wood  and  said,  "  Lend  me 
two  dollars,  will  you?  " 

The  General  knew  the  man;  he  knew 
his  record,  and  it  was  good.  The  corners 
of  his  mouth  flickered  with  the  faintest 
suggestion  of  a  smile  as  he  handed  him 
the  money. 

94 


Leonard  Wood 

"  Don't  forget,"  he  remarked,  "you're 
to  pay  it  back." 

The  General,  with  a  wide  experience 
of  soldiers,  half  seas  over,  suspected  that 
this  particular  doughboy's  intoxication 
was  not  the  kind  that  swallows  the  events 
of  a  night  in  happy  oblivion.  He  was 
not  mistaken.  The  next  day  brought  re 
membrance  to  the  doughboy  and  to  the 
General's  door  an  utterly  abased  and 
humiliated  transgressor. 

Again  the  smile  flickered  at  the  corners 
of  the  General's  mouth.  "  It's  all  right," 
he  said.  "  Your  record  was  good.  And 
you  won't  do  it  again." 

The  man's  face  shone;  his  record  had 
been  good;  from  that  moment  it  became 
distinguished.  A  flash  of  human  under 
standing  and  forbearance  had  turned 
what  might  have  proved  the  first  step 
toward  degradation  into  a  victory  for 
manliness  and  self-respect. 
95 


Leonard  Wood 

Wood  rode  much  among  the  troops, 
talking  to  the  men  during  their  periods  of 
rest,  keeping  the  officers  human  by  the 
example  of  his  own  humanness,  and 
creating  among  the  men  a  pride  in  his 
leadership  by  being  the  kind  of  leader  of 
whom  a  man  could  not  help  but  be 
proud.  There  was  something  uncanny 
in  the  General's  ability  to  be  everywhere 
and  see  everything.  He  came,  he  saw — 
and  very  shortly  after,  the  officer  re 
sponsible  received  what  he  deserved. 
When  at  night  the  General  found  that 
the  windows  of  barracks  were  shut  which 
ought  to  be  open,  he  did  not  reprimand 
either  privates  or  company  officers.  He 
sent  next  morning  for  the  brigade-com 
mander  involved,  found  that  the  windows 
had  been  shut  because  the  men  did  not 
have  sufficient  blankets,  and  immediately 
filled  the  lack.  A  private,  hearing  one 
officer  say  to  another,  "  The  Chief  wants 


Leonard  Wood 

the  boys  to  have  blankets  enough,"  inevi 
tably  came  to  the  conclusion  that  "  the 
Chief  "  was  a  man  of  almost  superhuman 
understanding,  and  was  ready  to  carry 
out  orders  thereafter  before  they  were 
given. 

"  Every  man  in  the  8pth  Division," 
said  a  staff  officer  later,  "  seemed  himself 
to  want  to  do  what  General  Wood 
wanted.  The  General  used  to  say, 
1  There  never  yet  was  a  bad  regiment, 
but  there  are  plenty  of  bad  colonels.7 
The  men  seemed  to  feel  that  attitude. 
He  never  scolded  them  when  things  went 
wrong,  but  he  gave  us  officers  hell." 

The  epidemics  of  mumps,  measles,  in 
fluenza  and  spinal  meningitis  which 
swept  all  the  great  camps  brought  misery 
and  death  to  Camp  Funston  also. 

"  In  many  ways  it  was  worse  than  a  battle," 
Wood  wrote  of  one  of  the  scourges  which 
had  incapacitated  a  quarter  of  the  men  in  the 

97 


Leonard  Wood 

cantonment.  "  But  the  men  behaved  splen 
didly,  no  absentees,  no  complaints.  The 
discipline  was  undisturbed.  Training  went 
on  without  a  hitch  and  every  one  was  smiling. 
None  of  our  men  are  ever  in  trouble,  and 
we  have  not  had  a  single  case  of  an  at 
tack  on  women  or  insulting  women.  Some 
how  or  other  we  had  discipline  without  hav 
ing  to  think  about  it.  Perhaps  the  reason  is, 
that  it  has  commenced  with  the  officers  and 
every  one  has  had  to  do  his  best." 

"  Soldiers  will  rise  to  any  level  set 
for  them  by  their  officers,"  he  said  at 
another  time.  "  When  there  is  illness  or 
other  trouble,  that's  the  time  for  you 
to  be  there." 

He  fought  for  the  lives  of  his  men 
with  untiring  energy.  The  great  dust- 
clouds  which  swept  the  cantonment  at 
one  time  were  irritating  the  noses  and 
throats  of  the  soldiers  and  making  them 
sensitive,  he  knew,  to  meningitis  and 
influenza.  He  bought  hundreds  of 


Leonard  Wood 

thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  crude  oil 
and  absolutely  saturated  the  cantonment 
site  and  the  adjacent  reservation.  It  was 
a  drastic  measure,  but  it  laid  the  death- 
carrying  dust.  The  following  spring  he 
had  the  land  sown  in  alfalfa,  and  the 
dust-borne  diseases  were  stamped  out  at 
Camp  Funston. 

He  watched  over  the  men  with  a 
father's  watchfulness.  There  was  some 
thing  glorious  to  him  in  the  humblest 
doughboy. 

"  You  are  a  band  of  crusaders,"  he 
said  to  them,  "  and  when  as  soldiers  you 
kill,  you  kill  only  that  right  may  pre 
vail." 

To  him  the  willingness  to  sacrifice  was 
the  essence  of  the  soldier's  glory  and  the 
splendor  of  the  sacrifice  to  him  was  the 
same  whether  death  came  on  the  battle 
field  or  by  disease  in  camp.  No  home 
was  darkened  by  the  death  of  a  boy 

99 


Leonard  Wood 

of  the  89th  but  a  personal  letter  came  to 
it  from  Leonard  Wood.  He  knew  that 
in  the  hearts  of  many  a  bereaved  father 
and  mother  was  the  bitter  consciousness 
of  a  vain  sacrifice  and  out  of  his  own 
conviction  he  wrote  them  that  their  son 
had  died  as  any  soldier  on  the  battle 
field,  "  in  the  great  cause  of  humanity, 
free  institutions  and  that  this  country 
may  live  in  security."  It  was  charac 
teristic  of  his  understanding  and  sym 
pathy  that,  even  as  he  could  not  think  of 
the  soldier  apart  from  the  human  ambi 
tions  and  hopes,  the  attractions  and  re 
pulsions  of  the  man  within  the  uniform, 
he  could  not  think  of  the  man  apart  from 
the  human  beings  who  made  his  intimate 
world.  When  the  War  was  over,  the 
children  of  every  one  of  his  men  who 
had  died  in  camp  or  fallen  in  France 
received  at  Christmas  a  personal  letter 
from  him. 

100 


Leonard* 

"  This  greeting  goes  to  you,"  he  wrote, 
"  with  a  Christmas  remembrance  from  your 
father's  comrades.  Although  you  will  espe 
cially  miss  his  cheerful  companionship  during 
these  holidays,  remember  he  would  want  you 
to  be  happy  and  that  he  left  you  the  precious 
heritage  of  his  noble  example.  Always  carry 
with  you  the  proud  memory  of  the  sacrifice 
which  he  made  for  you  and  his  country,  and 
try  to  follow  in  his  footsteps  in  doing  your 
full  duty  to  his  country  and  yours,  both  in 
War  and  Peace. 

"  Wishing  you  a  Merry  Christmas  and 
Happy  New  Year,  the  kind  he  would  want 
you  to  have, 

"  Sincerely  yours, 

"  LEONARD  WOOD, 
"  Major  General:' 

It  is  small  wonder  that  the  man  who 
had  it  in  him  to  write  a  letter  so  tender 
and  so  full  of  human  sympathy  should 
have  won  the  devotion  of  his  men  and 
been  able,  through  that  devotion,  to 
create  an  army  that  was  a  terrific  fighting 
101 


Wood 

machine  and  at  the  same  time  an  organi 
zation  of  independent  Americans  of  ini 
tiative  and  resource.  He  was  their  com 
mander,  but  he  was,  first  of  all,  their 
leader.  They  followed  him  with  whole 
hearted  enthusiasm  because  he  had  made 
them  understand  that  the  way  he  was 
going  was  the  way  that  they,  in 
their  best  moments,  themselves  wanted 
to  go. 

To  Wood,  the  training  of  the  89th  was 
a  great  spiritual  adventure  to  be  crowned 
when  he  led  his  Division  over  the  top 
under  fire.  In  May,  1918,  "Wood's 
Own,"  as  they  called  themselves,  were 
transferred  to  Camp  Mills  to  prepare 
for  embarkation.  But  it  was  as 
"  Wood's  Orphans  "  that  they  sailed  for 
France. 

At   the   last  moment,   General  Wood 
had  been  relieved  of  his  command  and 
ordered  to  San  Francisco. 
1 02 


Leonard  Wood 

It  was  a  tough  blow.  How  tough  it 
was  appears  between  the  lines  of  his 
farewell  message: 

"  I  will  not  say  good-bye,  but  consider  it 
a  temporary  separation — at  least  I  hope  so. 
I  have  worked  hard  with  you  and  you  have 
done  excellent  work.  I  had  hoped  very  much 
to  take  you  over  to  the  other  side.  In  fact, 
I  had  no  intimation,  direct  or  indirect,  of  any 
change  of  orders  until  we  reached  here  the 
other  night.  The  orders  have  been  changed 
and  I  am  to  go  back  to  Funston.  I  leave  for 
that  place  to-morrow  morning.  I  wish  you 
the  best  of  luck  and  ask  you  to  keep  up  the 
high  standard  of  conduct  and  work  you  have 
maintained  in  the  past.  There's  nothing  to 
be  said.  These  orders  stand;  and  the  only 
thing  to  do  is  to  do  the  best  we  can — all  of 
us — to  win  the  war.  That  is  what  we  are 
here  for.  That  is  what  you  have  been 
trained  for.  I  shall  follow  your  career  with 
the  deepest  interest — with  just  as  much  in 
terest  as  if  I  were  with  you.  Good  luck;  and 
God  bless  you!  " 

103 


Leonard  Wood 

In  the  face  of  public  indignation  the 
order  exiling  him  to  idleness  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  was  rescinded  and  he  was 
ordered  back  to  Camp  Funston  to  train  a 
new  Division,  the  loth. 

He  went  at  the  work  with  the  same 
zeal  with  which  he  had  undertaken  the 
training  of  the  8gth.  No  shade  of  dis 
couragement  weakened  his  spirit.  He 
gave  himself  to  his  new  army  as  he  had 
given  himself  to  the  old,  with  all  the 
devotion,  the  alert  watchfulness,  the 
solicitude,  the  appealing  humanness  that 
he  possessed.  The  men  responded  as  the 
others  had  responded,  with  even  greater 
zest,  if  anything.  Their  General  had 
had  a  "  raw  deal,"  they  said.  They  were 
"  damned  if  they  wouldn't  make  it  up  to 
him." 

The  loth  Division  never  reached  the 
fighting  line  to  put  their  commander's 
training  to  the  ultimate  test.  But  the 
104 


Leonard  Wood 

Sgth  did.  It  went  into  the  line  in  the 
Toul  sector  in  early  August  on  a  front  of 
sixteen  kilometers  with  orders  to  gain  all 
possible  information  about  the  enemy 
and  hold  the  line  while  all  the  Divisions 
massed  behind  for  the  attack  on  St.- 
Mihiel.  No  identifications  had  been  se 
cured  in  that  sector  for  a  month.  The 
8pth  went  into  the  line  without  brigading 
with  French  troops,  dominated  No  Man's 
Land  and  secured  on  an  average  one 
identification  a  day.  As  the  preparations 
for  the  Allied  attack  developed  the 
enemy  began  vigorous  patrols,  then  raids 
by  small  groups,  then  raids  by  storm 
troops  in  desperate  attempts  to  secure 
information.  The  89th  beat  off  every 
attack,  losing  not  a  prisoner  nor  the  body 
of  a  single  soldier  that  might  offer  evi 
dence  for  identification,  but  securing  in 
formation  itself  from  each  assault  of  the 
foe.  For  the  great  attack,  the  Sgth  be- 
105 


Leonard  Wood 

came  the  front-line  Division.  The  ob 
jective  was  the  key  to  the  German  posi 
tion,  a  concrete  and  wire  fortification  in 
the  Bois  de  Morte  Mere,  on  which  the 
enemy  had  been  working  for  four  years, 
and  which  the  French  had  stormed  in 
vain  again  and  again  two  years  pre 
vious. 

The  89th  captured  it  on  schedule,  held 
it,  reorganized  the  front  and  remained 
there,  unrelieved,  for  a  month. 

"  The  report  which  has  come  to  me 
which  has  pleased  me  most,"  Wood 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "  has  been  that  the 
Division  has  never  been  late  at  an  ob 
jective." 

It  never  was. 

In  the  Argonne  the  Sgth  fought  des 
perately  through  the  woods  to  the  line  for 
the  great  attack  of  November  first.  Here 
again  its  objective  was  the  key  to  the 
German  position,  the  heights  of  Barri- 
106 


Leonard  Wood 

court.  That  night  when  Marshal  Foch, 
grave  and  taciturn,  heard  that  the  heights 
had  been  taken,  he  said,  "  The  war  is 


over." 


But  for  ten  days  more  the  89th  fought 
on  across  the  Meuse.  It  was  not  the 
enemy,  only  the  Armistice  that  stopped 
them  at  last. 

Other  able  soldiers  in  succession  com 
manded  the  Division,  but  in  spirit  it  re 
mained  "  Wood's  Own."  One  night  that 
winter,  in  a  small  village  on  the  Rhine, 
a  staff  officer,  turning  a  corner  to  light 
a  cigarette  under  the  protection  of  the 
overhanging  eaves  of  a  peasant's  cottage, 
found  himself  suddenly  face  to  face  with 
what  looked  like  an  army. 

"What  outfit  is  this?"  he  asked. 

The  answer  was  quick  and  proud. 
"  This  is  a  Kansas  regiment!  " 

"  Is  it  a  good  outfit?  " 

"  Best  in  the  army!" 
107 


Leonard  Wood 

"  Why  is  that?  " 

"  Bound  to  be,  seeing  who  is  our  com 
mander  back  home.  This  is  Wood's 
Division  1 " 


1 08 


WHILE  Leonard  Wood  was  preach 
ing  preparedness,  training  civil 
ians  to  be  officers  when  the  need  came, 
and,  out  of  mechanics,  farmers  and  day- 
laborers,  shaping  soldiers  and  organiz 
ing  armies,  the  country  he  loved  and 
served  was  passing  through  an  experience 
in  government  that  was  as  new  to  the 
average  hard-headed  American  as  it  was 
bewildering;  and  as  terrifying  as  it  was 
in  some  aspects  comic. 

The  average  American  citizen  has  a 
natural  tendency  to  respect  and  trust  the 
Administration  which  a  majority  of  his 
fellow-citizens  places  in  control  of  the 
Federal  government,  even  though  he  him 
self  may  not  belong  to  that  majority. 
Once  elected,  the  President  becomes  to  a 
109 


Leonard  Wood 

certain  extent  dissociated  in  his  mind 
from  the  party  which  elected  him,  the 
leader  not  only  of  Democrats  or  Repub 
licans,  but  of  the  whole  American 
people.  He  is  inclined,  even  in  parti 
san  controversies,  to  give  the  President 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  He  recognizes 
the  difficulties  under  which  the  Presi 
dent  labors;  he  recognizes  also  the  ex 
istence  of  sources  of  information  open  to 
the  President  only,  which  give  him  the 
right  to  demand  that  he  be  not  judged 
by  superficial  appearances.  "  Stand  by 
the  President!  "  is  a  slogan  that  has  a 
firm  hold  on  the  American  consciousness, 
especially  in  matters  relating  to  foreign 
policy.  It  is  an  expression  of  the  Ameri 
can's  real  love  of  fair  play.  When  he 
feels  that  this  fundamental  impulse  has 
been  imposed  upon,  he  has  a  way  of 
"  seeing  red." 

The    remarkable    operations    of    the 
no 


Leonard  Wood 

mind  of  the  Wilson  Administration  af 
fected  the  average  American  curiously. 
At  first  he  was  puzzled.  He  saw  the 
Administration  go  to  war  with  Mexico 
and  at  the  same  moment  proclaim  its 
friendly  relations  with  that  state;  and 
the  situation  struck  him  as  odd.  He 
heard  it  condemn  the  German  govern 
ment  in  a  sharp  note,  threatening  war  if 
certain  things  happened;  the  things  hap 
pened,  and  the  Administration  backed 
out  of  its  threat. 

He  began  to  get  his  bearings. 

The  Administration  was  against  war 
under  any  circumstances,  he  said  to  him 
self,  and  though  he  suspected  that  the 
point  of  view  was  mistaken,  he  agreed 
that  there  were  arguments  in  its  favor. 
He  heard  the  Administration  shortly 
after  preach  non-interference  in  the  af 
fairs  of  small  nations,  and  he  acknowl 
edged  certain  merits  in  the  doctrine;  but 
in 


Leonard  Wood 

when  the  President  promptly  thereupon 
landed  marines  in  Santo  Domingo  to  take 
over  the  government  of  that  unruly  re 
public,  he  saw  both  pacifism  and  non 
interference  go  by  the  boards  and  became 
bewildered.  The  Lusltania  was  sunk; 
and  in  the  exalted  mood  of  the  days  that 
followed,  he  would  have  struck  the  man 
who  criticized  the  President;  but  the 
President  said  "  Too  proud  to  fight" 
and  his  blood  began  to  boil.  The  first 
Lusitanla  note  brought  back  the  glow 
of  pride,  but  the  second  and  third  made 
him,  he  did  not  know  altogether  why, 
slightly  ashamed.  He  was  dimly  aware 
that  some  one  was  trying  to  prove  to  him 
that  the  traditional  way  of  handling  dis 
agreements  between  nations  was  out  of 
date;  that  firmness  and  vigor  were,  in 
some  way  that  he  did  not  quite  under 
stand,  immoral;  and  that  the  men  who 
advocated  them  were  reactionary  militar- 

112 


Leonard  Wood 

ists.  Puzzled  and  unhappy,  he  wondered 
whether  he  too  were  a  reactionary;  and 
decided  to  keep  an  open  mind.  After  a 
while  he  seemed  to  see  light.  The  Ad 
ministration  was  definitely  pacifistic,  he 
said  to  himself.  But  suddenly,  it  was 
calling  for  "  incomparably  the  greatest 
navy  in  the  world."  In  his  joy  at  the 
sudden  appearance  of  masculinity  in 
what  seemed  to  him  the  curiously  femi 
nine  reactions  of  the  Administration  he 
did  not  object  to  a  reversal  of  policy.  A 
few  months  later,  to  his  astonishment, 
the  President  was  running  for  re-election 
on  the  issue  of  peace-at-any-price,  but  a 
month  after  his  second  inauguration  the 
country  was  at  war. 

The  citizen  who  liked  logic  and  con 
sistency  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs 
watched  the  performance  with  the  dizzy 
sensations  of  a  recruit  in  the  midst  of 
an  aviation  test.  He  heard  the  Adminis- 


Leonard  Wood 

tration  call  on  the  very  infants  to  "  help 
win  the  war  "  and  refuse  participation 
to  a  human  dynamo  worth  an  army  in 
himself;  he  heard  it  preach  democracy, 
until  men  wearied  of  the  word,  and  prac 
tise  autocracy  as  ruthlessly  as  a  czar; 
preach  co-operation  and  refuse  to  co 
operate;  appeal  for  publicity  and  clear 
thinking,  and  govern  by  smoke-screen  or 
by  Aladdin's  lamp.  He  heard  the  Ad 
ministration  ask  for  a  vote  of  confidence, 
and  proclaim  its  intention  to  abide  by  the 
popular  verdict;  he  saw  the  vote  of  con 
fidence  refused  by  the  people  and  heard 
the  Administration  declare  that  it  had  the 
country  at  its  back. 

The  American  of  the  old  tradition  felt 
his  head  reel  at  the  bewildering  welter  of 
insincerities  and  contradictions  and  irides 
cent  nebulosities  through  which  the  Ad 
ministration  seemed  to  dodge  back  and 
forth  like  a  greased  pig,  too  swift  and 
114 


Leonard  Wood 

slippery  for  human  hands  to  clutch.  He 
saw  it  reprove  Japan  in  an  ultimatum 
that  implied  war,  and  without  debate, 
concur  in  Japan's  desires;  he  saw  it 
defend  China  in  words  and  betray  her 
in  action;  he  saw  it  go  to  war  with 
Russia,  a  power  with  which  it  declared 
itself  to  be  at  peace,  and  petulantly  in 
sist  on  making  peace  with  Bulgaria,  a 
power  with  which  it  had  never  been  at 
war.  He  heard  it  preach  open  diplo 
macy,  with  the  air  of  Adam  discovering 
virtue,  and  saw  it  practise  the  ancient 
ways  of  Machiavelli  in  a  manner  as 
unashamed  as  it  was  inept.  In  America 
he  heard  it  prophesying  world-disaster 
if  a  comma  of  its  treaty  were  removed; 
in  France,  he  heard  the  same  voice 
sauvely  rejoicing  over  the  changes 
"  which  the  publication  of  the  treaty  had 
so  fortunately  brought  forth." 

Devious   and   strange   beyond   human 


Leonard  Wood 

comprehending  were  the  workings  of  the 
Administration's  intellectual  processes  to 
the  citizen  who  had  been  taught  in  a 
school  where  two  and  two  made  neither 
rabbits  nor  roc's  eggs,  but  four.  Like  a 
prestidigitator,  diverting  the  attention 
of  his  audience  with  a  meaningless  rig 
marole  while  he  pretends  to  turn  omelets 
into  singing-birds  and  silk  hats  into 
Bengal  tigers,  he  saw  the  Administration 
play  with  the  American  people,  relying 
for  success,  it  seemed,  partly  on  the 
swiftness  with  which,  in  the  mad  suc 
cession  of  events,  the  individual  act  is 
blurred  and  forgotten,  partly  on  that 
fundamental  principle  of  the  profession 
that  "  the  hand  is  quicker  than  the  eye." 
He  saw  the  Administration  shake  its 
finger  at  labor  and,  behind  a  screen  of 
many  words,  yield  to  its  demands;  he 
saw  it  shake  its  fist  at  the  profiteers,  and 
behind  a  wall  of  newspaper  headlines, 
116 


Leonard  Wood 

leave  them  unhampered  to  exact  the  last 
drop  of  blood ;  he  heard  it  flatter  the  pub 
lic  with  unctuous  phrases,  and  quietly 
throw  it  to  the  wolves,  since  it  possessed 
no  organization  which  needed  to  be  pro 
pitiated.  He  heard  it  preach  law  and 
order  even  while  it  flirted  with  the  very 
elements  that  were  undermining  law  and 
order;  and  even  while  it  fanned  the 
flames  of  anarchy  he  saw  it  turn  and 
annihilate  the  deluded  anarchist.  All 
this  he  heard  and  saw,  bathed  in  an  at 
mosphere  of  moonshine  and  Sweet- 
Sixteen-about-to-remake-the-world,  veil 
ing  a  singular  vindictiveness  and  untrust- 
worthiness;  a  flea-like  agility  to  shift 
position  just  at  the  instant  that  annihila 
tion  impends;  a  shrewd  wariness,  ex 
pressed  in  half-truths  and  half-measures 
—the  evil  cause  never  more  than  half 
opposed,  the  good  cause  never  more  than 
half  supported;  a  willingness  to  com- 
117 


Leonard  Wood 

promise  on  principles  and  unalterable 
firmness  only  where  personal  pride  was 
involved. 

The  citizen  who  loved  truth  more  than 
self-delusion  watched  the  strange  tragi 
comedy,  bitterly  resentful  at  what 
seemed  the  almost  fatal  departures  from 
American  policy,  the  delays,  the  evasions, 
the  inability  to  face  facts,  which  were 
costing  the  nation  thousands  of  lives  and 
billions  of  dollars;  yet  grimly  amused 
at  the  echoes  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan 
that  dodged  in  and  out  among  the  tragic 
chords.  There  seemed  a  cherubic  dis 
regard  for  realities  about  the  Adminis 
tration  as  fantastic  as  a  pantomime;  and 
an  elusiveness  and  intangibility  about 
its  policies  as  heart-breaking  as  the  with- 
drawings  and  returnings,  the  prodigious 
approaches  and  sudden  dissolutions  of 
the  shapeless  figures  of  a  fever-dream. 
He  bitterly  resented  the  vague  threats, 
118 


Leonard  Wood 

the  vague  promises,  the  vague  intima 
tions  of  upheaval,  the  altogether  vague 
remedies  which  were  disrupting  labor, 
distracting  capital,  making  the  whole 
people  restless  and  discontented,  and 
benefiting  only  the  agitator  and  the 
profiteer;  but  in  his  hottest  resentment  no 
American  with  any  laughter  left  in  him 
could  altogether  miss  the  gorgeous  and 
colossal  humor  in  an  appeal  for  self- 
determination  of  all  peoples  and  all  ra 
cial  groups  abroad,  by  the  leader  of  a 
party  whose  dominance  depended  on  the 
rigid  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  at 
home;  or  the  high  comedy  of  a  leader 
ship  which  fought  one  presidential  cam 
paign  in  defense  of  America's  solemn 
duty  to  keep  out  of  European  quarrels, 
and  proposed  to  fight  the  next  in  defense 
of  her  even  solemner  duty  to  get  into 
them. 

Leonard   Wood,    doing   his   work    at 
119 


Leonard  Wood 

Plattsburg  and  Governor's  Island,  at 
Charleston  and  Camp  Funston  and  Chi 
cago,  was  too  good  a  soldier  to  comment 
on  the  Administrative  actions  or  inac 
tions  of  his  superiors;  but  he  was  too 
good  an  American  citizen  not  to  feel  a 
deep  uneasiness  at  the  unsteady  course  of 
the  Ship  of  State,  the  veering  to  and 
fro,  and  the  flapping  of  idle  sails  where 
she  lay  in  the  wind,  now  and  again  jibing 
violently,  only  to  return  to  her  dangerous 
inertia,  while  the  helmsman  debated  with 
himself  backward  and  forward  whether 
to  lay  her  over  to  starboard  or  to  port. 

He  said  nothing;  but  the  record  of  his 
own  administration  in  Cuba  gives  more 
than  a  hint  of  the  emotions  that  seethed 
behind  his  tight-closed  lips.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  guess  what  the  man,  whose 
first  act  as  Governor  of  Santiago  was  to 
give  unlimited  freedom  of  criticism  to 
the  press,  thought  of  a  censorship  which 
1 20 


Leonard  Wood 

identified  opposition  to  the  Administra 
tion  with  treason  against  the  government, 
or  what  one,  who  had  found  his  greatest 
strength  in  open  dealing  and  in  careful 
explanation  of  every  step  he  had  made, 
thought  of  the  Administration's  deliber 
ate  secretiveness  and  apparently  studied 
efforts  to  blur  issues  and  confuse  the 
public  mind.  Wood,  as  governor,  seek 
ing  to  reorganize  the  railroads  of  Cuba, 
had  chosen  the  two  most  experienced  men 
available  in  America  and  England  to 
supervise  the  work;  revising  the  Cuban 
code  of  law,  he  had  turned  for  counsel  to 
the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States; 
fighting  yellow  fever,  he  had  called  to 
his  assistance  the  wisest  scientists  he 
could  find.  He  knew  that  notable  work 
can  be  done  only  through  notable  men; 
and  it  is  not  hard  to  imagine  his  reaction 
to  the  timid  reluctance  to  match  minds 
with  the  best,  which  laid  the  problems  of 
121 


Leonard  Wood 

a  dangerous  war  and  a  difficult  peace 
into  the  fumbling  hands  of  mediocrities. 
He  knew  from  personal  experience  that 
the  business  of  government  is  like  any 
other  great  business  and  must  be  organ 
ized  by  departments,  under  department 
heads  responsible  to  the  general  manager, 
the  President  or  governor  as  the  case 
may  be.  He  knew  that  in  the  govern 
ment,  as  in  industry,  any  attempt  by  the 
executive  to  override  the  heads  of  de 
partments  must  end  in  administrative 
chaos  and  that  the  machinery  of  govern 
ment  can  run  smoothly  only  when  the 
executive  appoints  trustworthy  subordi 
nates  and  trusts  them  to  handle  the  work 
allotted  them.  He  knew  that  prosperity 
and  general  well-being  demand  recipro 
cal  confidence  beween  the  government 
and  the  public,  expressed  in  open  deal 
ings.  He  knew  that  questions  involving 
labor  demand  such  open  dealing  above 
122 


Leonard  Wood 

all,  even  to  the  establishment  of  special 
commissions  for  the  purpose  of  investi 
gating  disputes  between  employers  and 
employees  and  publishing  their  findings 
for  the  information  and  instruction  of 
the  public.  He  knew,  from  his  own  ex 
perience,  not  only  in  Cuba,  but  in  the 
Philippines  and  in  the  Army,  that  no  dif 
ferences  between  individuals  or  organi 
zations  are  ever  settled  by  concessions  at 
variance  with  justice;  that  the  first  es 
sential  of  any  settlement  is  knowledge  of 
the  facts  involved,  the  second,  mutual 
trust,  the  third,  firmness  on  fundamental 
principles  and  a  spirit  of  conciliation  on 
details.  Knowing  these  things  it  is  not 
hard  to  guess  how  bitterly  he  resented  the 
Administration's  uncertain  and  cloudy 
relations  both  with  capital  and  with 
labor,  the  secret  conferences,  the  hazy 
admonitions,  the  impressive  generaliza 
tions,  the  total  lack,  at  critical  moments, 
123 


Leonard  Wood 

of  detailed  plans  and  the  consequent  lack 
of  trust  on  the  part  of  capital,  labor  and 
the  public  in  the  government  or  any  of 
its  works. 

What  Wood  was  thinking  during  these 
years  of  vacillation  and  mental  confusion 
remains  Wood's  secret.  He  did  not 
speak.  He  did  not  have  to.  Roosevelt 
was  alive. 

Roosevelt's  death  brought  him  a 
double  shock.  They  had  been  warm  and 
intimate  friends,  who  had  stood  side 
by  side  in  the  two  great  adventures  of 
their  lives,  the  romance  of  the  war  with 
Spain  and  the  glory  of  that  graver  war 
fare  when  they  fought  the  inertia  of  a 
people  lulled  into  forgetfulness  of  duty; 
and  forced  a  hostile  Administration  to 
take  the  course  which  they  laid  down. 
They  were  both  great  fighters,  both 
"  clean  as  a  hound's  tooth,"  both  most 
human  in  their  wide  sympathies  with  all 
124 


Leonard  Wood 

manner  of  men,  eager  for  counsel  and 
quick  and  steady  in  judgment;  above  all, 
both  masculine-minded,  having  the  cour 
age  to  tell  the  unpopular  truth.  When 
Roosevelt  died,  it  was  Wood's  battle- 
partner  that  went. 

But  Roosevelt's  death  brought  to 
Wood  a  shock  besides  the  shock  of  per 
sonal  loss.  He  found  the  eyes  of  thou 
sands  who  had  looked  to  "  the  Colonel  " 
for  leadership  now  fixed  on  himself. 

"  We  run  with  the  torches  until  we 
fall,"  Roosevelt  had  said,  "  content  if  we 
can  then  pass  them  to  the  hands  of  other 


runners." 


Gradually,  as  month  has  succeeded 
month  and  the  Presidential  election  has 
drawn  near,  Wood  has  become  the  focus 
of  the  hopes  of  an  increasing  number  of 
men  and  women  scattered  over  the  coun 
try  who  have  found  in  him  a  symbol 
of  that  blunt  belief  in  facts,  that  respect 
125 


Leonard  Wood 

for  training  and  experience,  that  love 
of  open  dealing,  which  the  Administra 
tion  has  offended,  and  that  traditional 
Americanism  which  in  subtle  ways  it 
has  sought  to  set  aside  as  old-fashioned. 

It  is  not  strange  that  countless  Americans, 

/ 

angered  at  the  lack  of  these  qualities  in 
the  Administration,  should  seek  to  make 
the  man  who  most  patently  possesses 
them,  the  instrument  of  their  indignation. 


126 


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